Bam Bam: The Sister Nancy Story led the field in tonight’s Canadian Screen Awards event honouring broadcast television. The documentary directed by Alison Duke scored five Canadian Screen Awards including Best Writing and Best Direction for Duke. The film offers a biography of the Jamaican dancehall singer and DJ whose titular song has been widely sampled in music across generations. Bam Bam: The Sister Nancy Story also won in the categories for music, picture editing, and sound.
Other Canadian Screen Awards winners included The Birdman of Cooper Island for director/producer Kevin McMahon and producer Michael McMahon. The doc took home the Rob Stewart Award for Best Science or Nature Documentary Program or Series. Birdman transports audiences to the Arctic where an avid birder returns for his 49th season.
Meanwhile, Netflix doc Who Killed the Montreal Expos? won two awards: Best History Documentary Program or Series for producers Marie-Christine Pouliot, Richard Speer, and Stéphanie Thibault and the Barbara Sears Award for Best Editorial Research for Sophie Charest and Nancy Audet. The film retraces the demise of the beloved baseball team and the struggle to maintain pro franchises in Canada.
Other winners included music docs Blue Rodeo: Lost Together and Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery. The films respectively won Best Biography or Arts Documentary Program or Series for David W. Brady, Kate Harrison Karman, Paul Johnson, Susan de Cartier, Corey Russell, Francine DiBacco, and Dale Heslip and the Barbara Sears Award for Best Visual Research for Stefanie McCarrol, Tammy Egan, and Judy Ruzylo.
After winning Best Cinematography in a Feature Documentary last night for There Are No Words, DP Iris Ng took home the broadcast equivalent for Exclusion: Beyond the Silence.
Meanwhile, Hannah Donegan, Ann Shin, and Erica Leendertse scored Best Documentary Program for The Loneliest Race, about an epic non-stop, 50,000 km sailing race, while Stephanie Weimar won Best Direction in a Documentary Series for Stuff the British Stole. Finally, the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program went to The Fifth Estate’s episode “The Shadow War on Libraries” by Allya Davidson, Emmanuel Marchand, Rachel Ward, and Grant LaFleche.
These winners followed the evening honouring theatrical docs and shorts where Endless Cookie scored top honours.
