Canadian Content at the Oscars

Ellen Page

Sarah Polley

Update Feb. 25: Diablo Cody won the Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars last night. To read my Oscar Results post, click here.

Update Feb. 23: Juno just won the Best Feature trophy at the Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica today. Ellen Page won the Best Actress Award and Diablo Cody won the Best First Screenplay Award. To read my Independent Spirit Awards post, click here.

I’m glad to see some significant Canadian representation in this year’s Oscars Nominations:

• Toronto’s Sarah Polley, the now 29 year-old director of Away From Her, getting the nod for Best Adapted Screenplay.
• Ellen Page, the 20 year-old Juno star from Halifax, Nova Scotia, for Best Actress.
• Jason Reitman, Montreal-born director of Juno for Best Director.
• The film Juno, directed by a Canadian, starring two young Canadians Ellen Page and Michael Cera, and filmed in B.C. getting a Best Motion Picture nomination. (Even though it isn’t classified as a Canadian film due to its American producer Fox Searchlight)
• Of course, others like directors David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises) and Paul Haggis (In The Valley of Elah) both have Canadian roots.

To read my review of Juno and Away From Her, just click on the movie title. (Update: To read my review on Ellen Page’s new movie Smart People ( 2008 ), click on the title.)

Also, while some call 2007 “Oscar’s Year of the Man”, it is all the more exhilarating to see the two young Canadian females Ellen Page and Sarah Polley acknowledged in a very male-dominated industry in the U.S.

Who cares what country they’re from, you may ask. Well, I do, because I once had to correct someone who strongly believed that Michael Ondaatje, the writer of The English Patient (1996), was an American author. And for that matter, just for clarification, Sarah Polley’s screenplay of Away from Her is adapted from Canadian writer Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over The Mountain”. And, watch for another Canadian literary icon Margaret Laurence’s novel now being turned into film, The Stone Angel (2007), also with Ellen Page.

Just a little clarification, Canada is more than just Margaret Atwood.