TV & Film News – Ryan Gosling, Robbie Robertson among Canadian Oscar nominees

Ryan Gosling, Robbie Robertson and Toronto-based filmmaker Nisha Pahuja are among the Canadians up for Oscars at the 96th Academy Awards. Announced Tuesday morning, Gosling earned a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Barbie, which has eight nominations heading into the awards, including Best Picture. Robertson, who passed away in August, is posthumously nominated for Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures for the original score for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which picked up 10 nods. Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger, a Notice Pictures/National Film Board co-production, is up for Best Documentary Feature Film. South Korean-Canadian playwright Celine Song’s directorial debut Past Lives is nominated for both Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Read more here.

The National Film Board (NFB) has announced the closure of its Vancouver and Montreal interactive studios as it reinvests in production. The move will result in the loss of 14 full-time positions, however NFB says a half-dozen new jobs will be created. Founded in 2009, NFB Commissioner Suzanne Guèvremont said in a release, that the Crown agency would have to at least double the interactive studios’ current budgets in order to properly fulfill their mandate, focused on producing experimental interactive and immersive media, including games and works of virtual and augmented reality. As a result of the studio closures, $3.5 million will be reinvested – $1.5 million in additional funding for documentary and animation production and $2 million for innovation initiatives aimed at improving production and distribution methods and increasing audience engagement. Read more here.

Citytv has released the official trailer for the highly-anticipated Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, premiering Thursday, Feb. 22 at 8 p.m. ET. The new Canadian spinoff of the iconic Dick Wolf franchise follows the Specialized Criminal Investigations team as they investigate high-profile homicides. Inspired by Canadian headlines, Season 1 delves into the worlds of high finance, politics, real estate, media, and more. It stars an all-Canadian ensemble cast that includes Aden Young (Rectify, Black Robe), Kathleen Munroe (Chicago Med, City on Fire, Patriot), Karen Robinson (Schitt’s Creek, Echoes), K.C. Collins (The Cleaning Lady, White Dog), Nicola Correia-Damude (Shadowhunters, Resident Alien), and Araya Mengesha (Nobody, Anne with an E). Go Button Media has announced a new partnership with ZDF Studios. The German producer/distributor has commissioned its first major factual series from the Canadian indie and will also handle its global distribution (excluding Canada). Go Button will also be continuing its partnership with Canadian broadcaster Super Channel on Into the Universe: The Secrets of the Cosmos Uncovered (8 x 52’), an accessible space and science series shining a light on some of the universe’s most intriguing and baffling questions. Working with astronomers, engineers, astrophysicists and philosophers, it combines expert commentary with the latest science and CGI to delve into complex cosmic riddles. Produced in 4K, the series will start delivering in the winter of 2024.

Discovery has announced all-new Canadian Original docuseries Timber Titans – produced in collaboration with Great Pacific Media, the producers of Highway Thru Hell and Mud Mountain Haulers – premieres Monday, Feb. 5. Set deep in the B.C. wilderness, the character-driven documentary series follows four logging companies as they fight through extreme weather and terrain to harvest one of Canada’s most vital natural resources. 

Great Pacific Media has unveiled original adventure docuseries, Rocky Mountain Wreckers. Set on the deadly I-80/I-15 interstate ring, the series follows the adventures of four family-owned heavy wrecking businesses across three states: Mountain Recovery (Vale, CO), Stauffer’s Towing & Recovery (West Haven, UT), Reliable Towing (Longmont, CO) and Big Al’s Towing (Cheyenne, WY). The series is commissioned by The Weather Channel in the U.S. Bell Media is the Canadian production partner and has Canadian rights to the show for Discovery Canada. Rocky Mountain Wreckers is currently in production for delivery in fall 2024.

Crave has announced new six-part original docuseries An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, premiering Thursday, Feb. 8. A Canada-UK co-production produced in association with Bloomberg Media, the series follows the Emmy nominated actor and Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Development Program as he journeys around the world, discovering innovative and inspiring initiatives that could help the Earth. The series is produced by Cream Productions and Wildfire Television in association with Bloomberg and Bell Media, and will be distributed internationally by Cineflix International Media.

Hollywood Suite has the exclusive Canadian premiere of Blumhouse’s Compendium of Horror, narrated by horror icon Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street). The five-part documentary series is the definitive retrospective on the horror genre from the company regarded as the driving force in the horror renaissance, premiering Thurs. Feb. 1, with new episodes weekly. Blumhouse’s Compendium of Horror revisits iconic horror movie moments from the 1930s until today, featuring insights from the most influential names in genre including directors John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) and Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, Evil Dead leading man Bruce Campbell, Saw star Tobin Bell and Blumhouse’s own Jason Blum.

Elders’ Film has announced that award-winning feature-length documentary s-yéwyáw / AWAKEN will be available to audiences across Canada free on demand on TELUS Optik TV channel 8 and online at watch.telusoriginals.com on Feb. 13. The film will premiere the same day on Hollywood Suite’s 2000s channel and Hollywood Suite On Demand. After a successful world premiere at the Planet In Focus International Environmental Film Festival in Toronto, where the film won the People’s Choice Award, the TELUS original film, directed by Liz Marshall (Meat The Future, Midian Farm), connects the transformative stories of artist, musician and medicine woman Ecko Aleck of the Nlaka’pamux Nation (Lytton, BC), filmmaker and Traditional Wellness Coordinator Alfonso Salinas of the shíshálh Nation (Sunshine Coast, BC) and storyteller and impact producer Charlene SanJenko of Splatsin of the Secwépemc Nation (Shuswap, BC) as they learn and document the traditional cultural teachings of their Elders.

OUTtv, in partnership with Fuse Media, has secured a deal with Channelbox to distribute OUTtv Proud, its international FAST channel, in the UK via Freeview. Following its recent deal with Netgem, which saw OUTtv Proud launch in the UK and Ireland, OUTtv is further expanding the reach of its FAST channel which features over 400 hours of content including OUTtv originals Call Me Mother, Hot Haus, and For The Love of DILFs.