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All eyes are on the 89th Academy Awards this Sunday night and there are a few nominees Canada’s eyes are zooming in on.
Ryan Gosling
Ontario-born Ryan Gosling is a best leading actor nominee for his role as an endearing jazz musician in La La Land, a musical that enchantingly reignites an old-Hollywood flair in modern day Los Angeles. Gosling, who has already won a best actor Golden Globe Award for La La Land, spent around three months learning piano for his role in the film and had tap, ballroom, and jazz dance rehearsals for two months before shooting. This is Gosling’s second career nod in this category. His was first recognized in 2007 for his role in Half Nelson.
Of course, this is just one of 14 nominations for La La Land—tying the record previously set by Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950).
Denis Villeneuve
Success is nothing new for Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve, who studied film at the Université du Québec à Montréal. In 1998, Villeneuve directed his first full-length feature and after his work on award-winning Quebec features like Polytechnique (2009) and Incendies (2010), he directed acclaimed films such as Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015). Villeneuve snagged his first Academy Awards directing nomination this year for Arrival, one of eight nominations for the film.
Filmed in Montreal and rural Quebec, Arrival is an original sci-fi drama about understanding the purpose of mysterious spacecraft landings across the globe. Villeneuve is also directing the upcoming Blade Runner 2049 starring—you guessed it—Ryan Gosling.
Arrival was shot with a largely Canadian crew... some of Villneuve’s Quebec collaborators also earned nods, including Patrice Vermette for production design, Paul Hotte for set decoration, Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye for sound mixing, Sylvain Bellemare for sound editing, and co-producer Shawn Levy.
Animated Shorts & Documentary Features
Canadians are also well represented in the animated short category. Nominees include Montreal-based director Theodore Ushev's animated short Blind Vaysha, Piper, directed by Niagara Falls, Ontario’s Alan Barillaro, and Pear Cider and Cigarettes, directed by Vancouver's Robert Valley.
Disney’s Moana, a nominee for best animated feature, includes the work of Kitchener, Ontario's Chris Williams, one of its four directors.
Producer Howard Barish, from Winnipeg, has a nod in the documentary feature category for 13th, Ava Duvernay's examination of race and the U.S. criminal justice system.