Official statement by Carolle Brabant, Executive Director of Telefilm Canada, on the Canadians nominated for the 2015 Oscars

Montreal, January 15, 2015— Telefilm Canada warmly applauds the Canadian talents who have received a 2015 Oscar nomination. From feature films to shorts, live action to animation, directing to technical categories, these nominations show that the creativity of our Canadian talents shines clearly and brightly.

Congratulations to the renowned filmmakers whose films have been nominated this year, including, notably: Jean-Marc Vallée, no stranger to the Oscars given that his film Dallas Buyers Club won its star, Matthew McConaughey, the Best Oscar Actor in 2014; Dean DeBlois, whose first How to Train Your Dragon was nominated for an Oscar in 2010; Graham Annable, whose film was nominated at the Venice Film Festival and the BAFTA Awards, both in 2014; and director Torill Kove, winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2007, who is nominated this year for a film coproduced by the National Film Board of Canada. I would also like to congratulate Robert Bridson, a Canadian film professional, who has been awarded an Oscar for outstanding technical achievement. Kudos also to Calgary duo Tegan and Sara for their Oscar-nominated performance of the song “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie.

These nominations are an honour, not simply for their recipients, but for the Canadian film industry as a whole. Our country is a hothouse of incredible creative talents, who are increasingly making a mark at festivals, markets and movie theatres around the world. We will be delighted to pay tribute to this year’s Oscar-nominated Canadians at the Canada Stars In Awards Season event on February 19. This celebration will be organized in partnership with the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles, with the support of several industry partners.

• Wild, by Jean-Marc Vallée
  Best Actress — Reese Witherspoon
  Best Supporting Actress — Laura Dern

• How to Train your Dragon 2, by Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold
  Best Animated Feature Film

• The Boxtrolls, by Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable and Travis Knight
  Best Animated Feature Film

• Me and My Moulton, by Torill Kove
  Best Short Film — Animated

• “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie, The Lonely Island/Tegan and Sara
  Best Original Song

Oscars for scientific and technical achievements

• Robert Bridson, for early conceptualization of sparse-tiled voxel data structures and their application to modeling and simulation.