SyFy’s ‘Van Helsing’ nets a whopping 20 Leo Award nominations
Don’t bet against vampires and the heroes who fight them.
That’s one big takeaway from Tuesday’s Leo Awards announcement, which put SyFy’s post-apocalyptic vampire series Van Helsing ahead of the pack with 20 nominations, including Best Program, Best Direction (Jacquie Gould and Michael Nankin), Supporting Male (Aleks Paunovic and Vincent Gale), Supporting Female (Rukiya Bernard), and Lead Male (Jonathan Scarfe).
The Leo Awards recognize on-screen and behind-the-camera excellence in the British Columbia film and television sphere and are handed out over several splashy ceremonies each May and June.
CBC’s critically acclaimed miniseries Unspeakable – about Canada’s tainted blood scandal – follows closely with 17 nominations in the Dramatic Series category, including three for Best Supporting Male: Alex Rose, Brian Markinson, and David Lewis.
The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco – BritBox’s locally shot series about brilliant women solving crime in 1950s San Francisco – nabbed eight nominations, including Lead Female for Crystal Balint, while Netflix’s hit series The Order (about secret societies, magic, and mayhem) follows with six, including Best Guest Performance Female for Jewel Staite (who is also nominated for Best Female Performance in a Short Film for CC, about an AI nanny gone very, very bad).
Netflix’s hit series The Order – about secret societies, magic, and werewolves – is up for six Leo Awards.
View the nomination list in its entirety at https://secure.leoawards.com/2019/nominees/.
In the Motion Picture category, three films garnered 10 nominations apiece: Gwaii Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown’s groundbreaking Haida-language epic Edge of the Knife (Sgaawaay K'uuna), Bruce Sweeney’s dramedy Kingsway, and Marie Clements’ Red Snow (Clements’ feature-length documentary The Road Forward was a big winner at the 2018 Leo Awards).
Jesse James Miller’s searing drama Rabbit has nine nods in the Motion Picture category, including three for Supporting Female: Jennifer Copping, Johanna Marlowe, and Gabrielle Miller.
Letter to Masanjia – a feature-length documentary about an SOS letter sent from inside a Chinese labour camp – received six nominations in the Documentary category, including Best Feature-Length Documentary, Best Direction, and Best Screenwriting.
Overall, 110 awards will be handed out in the categories of Short Drama, Documentary Program or Series, Information, Lifestyle or Reality Program or Series, Music, Comedy or Variety Program or Series, Animation Program or Series, Youth or Children's Program or Series, Web Series, Music Video, Dramatic Series, Motion Picture, and Student Production.
Other nominations of note:
-Animal Behaviour – David Fine and Alison Snowden’s animated short that was also nominated for an Academy Award – is up for five Leos;
-Four dynamic, women-led web series – Girls vs. The City, NarcoLeap, The Actress Diaries, and Rachel – have three nominations each in the Web Series Category;
Jeffrey Aro and Maja Aro are nominated for Best Stunt Coordination for an episode of Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle for an episode is which they recreated the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk. Contributed photo
-Nine Christmas movies are in the running for various awards in the Television Movie category, including A Godwink Christmas, Christmas Pen Pals, Every Day is Christmas, It’s Christmas Eve, Mr. 365, Poinsettias for Christmas, Road to Christmas, The Christmas Pact, and Welcome to Christmas;
-Actress Camille Sullivan is up for two Leo Awards: Best Lead Performance in a Motion Picture for Kingsway and Best Lead Performance in a Dramatic Series for Unspeakable;
-In addition to his aforementioned nomination for Van Helsing, Paunovic is nominated for Best Male Performance in a web series for NarcoLeap;
-Jeffery Aro has three nominations in the Stunt Coordination category: two for Lost in Space, and one with Maja Aro for Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle for an episode in which they recreated the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quang Duc.
The 2019 Leo Awards will be handed out on May 25, May 26, and June 1. The awards aren’t broadcast or live-streamed, but YVR Screen Scene will be present for all three ceremonies. Follow @sabrinarmf and @yvrscreenscene for live tweets and red carpet coverage.
Tickets and schedules at LeoAwards.com.
