Canadian film directors honor 'Passchendaele'
TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - "Passchendaele" continued its winning ways Saturday night at the eighth annual Directors Guild of Canada Awards, where it picked up the best feature film team trophy.
The Canadian war epic earlier this year won six trophies, including one for best Canadian movie, at the Genies, Canada's film awards.
"Passchendaele," which centers on the trench combat of World War I, also earned a production design trophy for Carol Spier.
Spier, best known for her collaboration on nine David Cronenberg films, also picked up the 2009 DGC lifetime achievement award.
Cronenberg was on hand to introduce a nervous Spier, insisting there wasn't any tension because she'd already been tapped for the tribute. "Imagine if there was a competition for a lifetime achievement award, and you lost?" the Toronto-based director joked.
On the TV front, the CBS/CTV series "Flashpoint" picked up the best TV drama team award, a best direction award for Holly Dale and another for best TV series sound editing.
Sturla Gunnarsson's "Air India 182," a documentary about the 1985 terrorist attack on Air India flight 182, won the inaugural Allan King Award for documentary excellence. Veteran Canadian documentary maker King, a pioneer of the cinema verite movement, died in Junein Toronto after a short illness, at age 79.
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)
