Endless Cookie topped the Canadian Screen Awards winners during last night’s Cinematic Arts Awards. The evening honoured Canadian feature films and short films during Canadian Screen Week festivities. Endless Cookie won two Canadian Screen Awards including Best Feature Documentary.
The win capped off a festival run in which Endless Cookie dominated the Canadian documentary side. The film won the Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Feature at Hot Docs last year before scoring the Rogers Best Canadian Documentary award from the Toronto Film Critics Association in March.
Endless Cookie tells the story of half-brothers Seth Scriver and Pete Scriver as the former captures the latter’s rambling stories in audio and then imaginatively illustrates them on film. The documentary harnesses Pete’s gift for gab while situating his many digressions within traditions of Indigenous oral storytelling. The Scrivers, who co-directed Endless Cookie, shared the prize with producers Daniel Bekerman, Alex Ordanis, Chris Yurkovich, Jason Ryle, and Neil Mathieson. Endless Cookie also won Best Sound Design in a Documentary for Andrew Zuckerman.
Other docs among the Canadian Screen Award winners included Modern Whore, Nicole Bazuin’s peppy portrait of sex worker and author Andrea Werhun. The film won two awards: Best Film Editing in a Feature Length Documentary for Bazuin and Best Music in a Feature Length Documentary for composer Tom Third. Meanwhile, Iris Ng won Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary for lensing Min Sook Lee’s family portrait There Are No Words, and Wanda Nolan, Liz Cowie, Rohan Fernando, and Nathalie Cloutier won Best Short Documentary for The Muse.
On the dramatic side, R.T. Thorn’s dystopian thriller 40 Acres swept the field. It won nine Canadian Screen Awards including Best Director and the John Dunning Award for Best First Feature. Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie won four awards including Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy for Johnson, as well as Best Original Song for “The Alphabet Song,” a win that let Johnson and co-writer/star Jay McCarrol bring their irreverent humour to the stage.
Other winners including Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers for Best Supporting Performance in a Drama for Sweet Angel Baby and Mile End Kicks for Best Film Editing and Sustainable Production. Oscar winner The Girl Who Cried Pearls added another trophy to its shelf with for Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski, Julie Roy, Marc Bertrand, and Christine Noël, while maxine bailey won the Changemaker Award, present to her by her brother, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey.
Additional winners for broadcast documentary will be revealed throughout Canadian Screen Week.
