An Award-winning Year for Sheridan Film and Animation Programs

From the Academy Awards to the Toronto International Film Festival, students and graduates earn acclaim.

For Immediate Release: June 8, 2009
Oakville, Ontario

2009 is shaping up to be an exceptional year for students and graduates of Sheridan’s film and animation programs.  The awards season kicked off with an Academy Award nomination for Chris Williams, co-director of the Disney film, Bolt.  Williams, who studied animation at Sheridan in 1995, was nominated in the Best Animated Feature Film category.
At the Genie Awards held in Ottawa this past April, it was the turn of Advanced TV & Film (ATVF) and Media Arts graduates to shine.  Richie Mehta (2003 ATVF) and Stephen Bray (2003 Media Arts) received a total of six nominations for the feature film, Amal, including Best Motion Picture and Achievement in Direction.  John Christou, a 2001 ATVF graduate, won the award for Best Documentary with Up the Yangtse. 

More recently, Sheridan grads walked away with the Golden Sheaf Award for Best Student Film in Canada at the Yorkton Film Festival on May 23.  The dramatic short Last Stage was produced by Hollis Ludlow-Carroll, directed by Chris Pozzebon, and co-written by Trevor Picket and Ludlow-Carroll.  Last Stage follows a stand-up comedian struggling to keep his act together while his mother battles the final stages of Alzheimer's disease. The Yorkton Film Festival is the longest running festival of its kind in North America.

Last Stage was produced entirely by Advanced Television and Film (ATVF) students using state of the art digital technologies in production and post-production processes.  In addition to course work, ATVF students produce one minute, three minute and ten minute digital projects.  Projects are filmed on a variety of cameras including 35 and 16mm, high definition, and digital cinema cameras such as the Red One.  Post-production editing is completed on both Avid and Final Cut Pro.  Industry partners include Deluxe Postproductions, Fujifilm Canada, Panavision Canada, Toronto Film Studios/Filmport and P.S. Production Services.

Sheridan student productions also received national recognition on May 27 at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Student Film Showcase, which annually recognizes the Best Animation and Best Live Action created by student filmmakers across Canada.  Yuriy Sivers, a Sheridan Bachelor of Applied Arts (Animation) student, won Best Animation for his film, Humpty Dumpty is Scrambled.Two other Sheridan students were featured among the 13 films selected for screening:  Nanu by Alex Donald (BAA/ Animation) and The Freshwater Plague, a documentary film by Jake Chirico (Media Arts).  The Student Film Showcase is an annual event which selects the finest student films from those submitted by universities and colleges across the country. It presents a diverse and exciting range of student work including animation, documentary, fiction and experimental films, representing the talent of Canada's future generation of filmmakers.

About Sheridan:

The Sheridan Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning annually serves 15,000 full-time and 35,000 continuing education students at its campuses in Oakville and Brampton, Ontario.  Its School of Animation, Arts and Design is the largest post-secondary arts school in Canada, with offerings ranging from one-year certificates to four-year Bachelor’s degrees and one-year post-graduate certificate programs. Sheridan’s digital media programs are renowned worldwide for their integration of technology and artistic vision, producing award-winning content and the next generation of digital storytellers.