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{{Short description|Former Canadian film awards}}
{{Infobox award
| name = Canadian Film Awards
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| imagesize =
| caption =
| descriptionawarded_for = Best [[film]] productions in Canada
| presenter =
| country = [[Canada]]
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}}
 
The '''Canadian Film Awards''' were the leading [[Cinema of Canada|Canadian cinema]] awards from 1949 until 1978. These honours were conducted annually, except in 1974 when a number of [[Quebec]] directors withdrew their participation and prompted a cancellation.<ref name=canenc /> In the 1970s they were also sometimes known as the '''Etrog Awards''' for sculptor [[Sorel Etrog]], who designed the [[statuette]].<ref>[http://www.academy.ca/awards/genie.cfm Genie Awards profile and history] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090103183226/http://www.academy.ca/awards/genie.cfm |date=2009-01-03 }} at the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's website</ref>
 
The awards were succeeded by the [[Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television|Academy of Canadian Cinema]]'s [[Genie Awards]] in 1980.;<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.academy.ca/awards/genie.cfm | accessdateaccess-date=2009-01-26 | title=The Genie Awards | publisher=[[Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television]] | deadurlurl-status=yesdead | archiveurlarchive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090103183226/http://www.academy.ca/awards/genie.cfm | archivedatearchive-date=2009-01-03 }}</ref> beginning in 2013 the Academy merged the Genie Awards with its separate [[Gemini Awards]] program for television to create the contemporary [[Canadian Screen Awards]].<ref>{{Cite web|title df= Goodbye Genies and Geminis, hello Canadian Screen Awards|url = http://www.thegate.ca/blog/013775/goodbye-genies-geminis-hello-canadian-screen-awards/|website = The GATE|publisher = The GATE Entertainment Magazine|access-date = 21 December 2015}}</ref>
 
==History==
The award was first established in 1949 by the Canadian Association for Adult Education,<ref name=canenc>{{cite webencyclopedia | url=httphttps://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.comca/en/article/canadian-film-awards/ | title=Canadian Film Awards | publisherencyclopedia=''[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]'' | accessdateaccess-date=2009-01-26 | first=Paul | last=Townend }}</ref> under a steering committee that included the [[National Film Board]]'s [[James Beveridge]], the Canadian Foundation's Walter Herbert, filmmaker [[F. R. Crawley]], the [[National Gallery of Canada]]'s Donald Buchanan and diplomat Graham McInnes.<ref name=canenc /> The initial jury consisted of [[Hye Bossin]], managing editor of ''Canadian Film Weekly''; M. Stein of Famous Players; [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]] film critic [[Gerald Pratley]]; Moira Armour of the Toronto and Vancouver Film societies; and Ian MacNeill from CAAE.<ref name=canenc /> The Canadian Foundation and the [[Canadian Film Institute]] were also brought in as sponsors of the awards.<ref name=topalovich>Maria Topalovich, ''And the Genie Goes To...: Celebrating 50 Years of the Canadian Film Awards''. [[Stoddart Publishing]], 2000. {{ISBN|0-7737-3238-1}}. pp. 81-83.</ref>
 
The first presentation was held on April 27, 1949 at the Little Elgin Theatre in Ottawa.<ref name=canenc />
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In 1957, ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'' columnist Ronald Johnson criticized the awards' publicity efforts, noting that even Bossin was not actually receiving the press releases and that many of the releases which were going out were being sent to journalists not involved in covering or reporting on film.<ref>"Moving with the movies". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', June 17, 1957.</ref> The paper's film critic [[Jay Scott]] later described them as "honours given by presenters no one knew, to recipients no one recognized, to films no one had seen."<ref name=geniealogy>"Coffee-table Genie-alogy took some reel sleuthing". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', March 21, 1985.</ref>
 
With very few feature films made in Canada at all prior to the 1960s, in some years no Film of the Year winner was named at all, with the awards for Best Short Film or Best Amateur Film instead constituting the highest honour given to a film that year.<ref name=canenc /> Even the award for Film of the Year, when presented at all, generallyoften also went to a short film. The awards were also almost totally dominated by the National Film Board, to the point that independent filmmakers sometimes alleged a [[systemic bias]] which was itself a contributing factor to the difficulty of building a sustainable commercial film industry in Canada.<ref name=geniealogy/> Particularly in the 1960s, [[television film]]s were also eligible for the awards; in 1969, in fact, no theatrical films were deemedentered worthy ofinto the awards at all, and the nominees and winners at the [[21st Canadian Film Awards]] consisted almost entirely of television films.<ref>{{cite news|title=No Theatre Films Up for Awards|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12890032/|newspaper=[[Ottawa Journal]]|date=September 24, 1969|page=31|via = [[Newspapers.com]]|accessdateaccess-date = August 5, 2017 }} {{Open access}}</ref> FollowingDespite the creation of the [[ACTRA Awards]] for television in 1972, however,the televisionCanadian filmsFilm wereAwards nocontinued longerto commonlypresent seenselected among"non-feature" awards, inclusive of television films, until the award[[1st nomineesGenie Awards]] in 1980.
 
A separate award for Best Feature Film was instituted in 1964.<ref name=topalovich/> Acting awards were introduced in 1968, and then expanded into separate categories for lead and supporting performers thein following year1970.<ref name=topalovich/>
 
In 1968, athe consortium of organizations that presented the awards up to that point discontinued their involvement, and the awards were reorganized into their own independent organization with their own board of directors.<ref name=topalovich/> A new bronze award statuette was designed by sculptor [[Sorel Etrog]], and thereafter the award was often referred to as an '''Etrog''', although the name of the ceremony itself remained the Canadian Film Awards.<ref name=canenc /> Two special awards, the John Grierson Award for outstanding contribution to Canadian cinema and the [[Wendy Michener Award]] for outstanding artistic achievement, were also added in later years.<ref name=canenc />
 
===Quebec crisis of the 1970s===
In the 1970s, the organization frequently faced crises related to the [[Cinema of Quebec|francophone film industry]] in [[Quebec]]. This began in 1970, when filmmaker [[Jean Pierre Lefebvre]] threatened to withdraw his film ''[[Q-Bec My Love]]'' from the competition if the [[Ontario Film Review Board|Ontario Censor Board]] did not withdraw its demand for the film to be edited.<ref name=crises>"Canadian Film Awards copes with string of crises". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', September 28, 1970.</ref> Several other filmmakers were also prepared to withdraw in solidarity, although provincial cabinet minister [[James Auld (politician)|James Auld]] intervened to dissuade the board from insisting on the cuts.<ref name=crises/>
 
In 1973, a number of Quebec filmmakers boycotted the awards[[25th Canadian Film Awards]], out of a perception that the organization had a systemic bias against francophone films.<ref name=rebirth>"Rebirth of the film awards". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', October 2, 1975.</ref> This protest resulted in the last-minute cancellation of the 1973 awards ceremony, with the winners announced only at a press conference, and the complete cancellation of the 1974 awards. When the awards returned in 1975, the eligibility period covered the entire two-year period since the previous ceremony in 1973; however, the awards committee revived the defunct Film of the Year category alongside the ongoing Best Feature Film award, so that two Best Pictures, one for each of 1974 and 1975, could be named.<ref>{{cite news|title=Les Ordes [sic] takes top cinema award |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18702954/|newspaper=[[Brandon Sun]]|date=October 15, 1975|page=19|via = [[Newspapers.com]]|accessdateaccess-date = March 28, 2018 }} {{free access}}</ref> The 1973 awards were also criticized for the jury's choice of ''[[Slipstream (1973 film)|Slipstream]]'' as Best Feature Film over a field of four other much stronger nominees,<ref>"The stinkers of '73". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', December 29, 1973.</ref> with some writers later declaring that the film's victory, over enduring Canadian film classics such as ''[[Kamouraska (film)|Kamouraska]]'' and ''[[Réjeanne Padovani]]'', essentially confirmed that the boycotting directors were correct in their beliefs.<ref name=geniealogy/>
 
===Evolution into the Genie Awards===
In the final years of the Canadian Film Awards, the dedicated festival was discontinued, and instead the eligible films were screened as part of the [[Toronto International Film Festival|Festival of Festivals]] lineup after that event was launched in 1976, with the ceremony taking place at the end of the festival.<ref>[[Lawrence O'Toole (journalist)|Lawrence O'Toole]], "The days of whine and roses". ''[[Maclean's]]'', October 2, 1978.</ref>
After 1978, the awards were taken over by the new [[Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television]], and reorganized into the new [[Genie Awards]].<ref>"Canadian 'Oscar' show new group's first aim". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', April 12, 1979.</ref> Despite the renaming, Etrog's statuette was retained as the design of the Genie statuettes.<ref>"Sorel Etrog's link to his past". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', December 7, 1996.</ref> The Genie Awards continued to be presented until 2012, when the Academy merged them with its [[Gemini Awards]] program for television to create the contemporary [[Canadian Screen Awards]].▼
 
▲After 1978, the awards were taken over by the new [[Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television]], and reorganized into the new [[Genie Awards]].<ref>"Canadian 'Oscar' show new group's first aim". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', April 12, 1979.</ref> Despite the renaming, Etrog's statuette was initially retained as the design of the Genie statuettes.;<ref>"Sorel Etrog's link to his past". ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', December 7, 1996.</ref> they later underwent a modernized revamp, but were still based on Etrog's original design. The Genie Awards continued to be presented until 2012, when the Academy merged them with its [[Gemini Awards]] program for television to create the contemporary [[Canadian Screen Awards]].
 
After launching the Genies, the [[Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television]] created the [[Bijou Awards]], which were presented in 1981 as a new home for several award categories that were being dropped from the Genies, although the Bijous were never presented again after 1981, and instead the [[Gemini Awards]] were launched in 1986 to replace the ACTRAs as Canada's primary television awards.
 
When Academy publicist Maria Topalovich was preparing a history of the awards for publication in the early 1980s, she found that even the Academy itself had not received complete documentation of the awards' past winners and nominees in the takeover,<ref name=geniealogy/> and instead she had to undertake extensive archival research.<ref name=geniealogy/>
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|[[5th Canadian Film Awards]] || April 30, 1953 || [[Jacques DesBaillets]] (with guest [[Dorothy Lamour]]) || [[Avenue Theatre (Montreal)|Avenue Theatre]], [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]] || ''[[Tit-Coq]]'' || None awarded
|-
|[[6th Canadian Film Awards]] || May 10, 1954 || [[J. R. White]] ([[Imperial Oil]] president) || [[Kent Theatre]], [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]] || ''[[The Seasons (film)|The Seasons]]'' || None awarded
|-
|[[7th Canadian Film Awards]] || 1955 || No public ceremony || No public ceremony || ''[[The Stratford Adventure]]'' || None awarded
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|[[17th Canadian Film Awards]] || May 15, 1965 || [[Max Ferguson]] || [[Westbury Hotel]], [[Toronto]], [[Ontario]] || None awarded || ''[[The Luck of Ginger Coffey (film)|The Luck of Ginger Coffey]]''
|-
|[[18th Canadian Film Awards]] || May 6, 1966 || [[Rich Little]] || [[Queen Elizabeth Hotel]], [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]] || ''[[The Mills of the Gods: Viet Nam]]'' || ''[[Mission of Fear]] (Astataïon, ou Le Festin des Morts)''
|-
|[[19th Canadian Film Awards]] || September 23, 1967 || [[Fred Davis (broadcaster)|Fred Davis]] || [[Inn on the Park]], [[Toronto]], [[Ontario]] || ''[[Warrendale (film)|Warrendale]]'' || ''[[Warrendale (film)|Warrendale]]''
|-
|[[20th Canadian Film Awards]] || October 4, 1968 || [[Bill Walker (broadcaster)|Bill Walker]], [[Louise Marleau]] || [[Seaway Towers Hotel]], [[Toronto]], [[Ontario]] || ''[[A Place to Stand (film)|A Place to Stand]]'' || ''[[The Ernie Game]]''
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|[[25th Canadian Film Awards]] || October 12, 1973 || Press conference, no formal ceremony || [[Chevalier Theatre]], [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]] || None awarded || ''[[Slipstream (1973 film)|Slipstream]]''
|-
|rowspan=2| [[26th Canadian Film Awards]] || rowspan=2| October 12, 1975 || colspan="2" align=center|'''''No Ceremony in 1974''''' || ''[[The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (film)|The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz]]''† || None awarded
|-
|[[Peter Gzowski]] || [[Shaw Festival]], [[Niagara-on-the-Lake]], [[Ontario]] || ''[[LesOrders Ordres(1974 film)|Orders]] (Les Ordres)'' || ''[[LesOrders Ordres(1974 film)|Orders]] (Les Ordres)''
|-
|[[27th Canadian Film Awards]] || October 21, 1976 || [[Lorne Greene]] || [[9 Channel Nine Court|CFTO-TV Studios]], [[Scarborough, Toronto|Scarborough]], [[Ontario]] || None awarded || ''[[Lies My Father Told Me]]''
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==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070112152716/http://www.genieawards.ca/genie27/main.cfm Genie Awards site]
 
{{Canadian Screen Awards}}
 
[[Category:Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978)|*]]
[[Category:Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television]]
[[Category:Awards established in 1949]]
[[Category:Awards disestablished in 1978]]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Film_Awards"