Chris Landreth’s Feb. 27 Oscar win for his animated short Ryan capped off 11 months during which he traveled around the world in support of the film, picking up nearly 40 awards. He says the Oscar provides the ultimate closure for his project.

‘I couldn’t have asked for anything better,’ Landreth said on the phone from Florida, where, just days after the ceremony, he was delivering a master class on animation and visiting his father.

Ryan, a copro between Toronto’s Copper Heart Entertainment and the National Film Board, tells the story of NFB animator Ryan Larkin, himself Oscar-nominated, who, despite a promising start, succumbed to substance abuse and now panhandles in Montreal. Landreth, who shared a 1995 Oscar nom in the same category for the end, tells Larkin’s story through an innovative 3D CGI style he brands ‘psychological realism.’

It was a proud win for Canada, ironically coming from an American native. Landreth moved to Toronto from Chicago in 1994 to work for 3D animation and FX software manufacturer Alias. He will now take time to develop his next project (Ryan itself was three years in the making), but is superstitious about revealing too much.

‘The creativity gods would strike me dead at this point if I were to go into any detail,’ he says.

Ryan is currently screening in front of feature films in Toronto and Montreal, and Copper Heart producer Steve Hoban is talking to British and American distributors for a similar arrangement in those countries. Distrib Apollo Cinema has picked it up in the U.S. as part of an art-house program of all this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts, animated and live action.

Hoban is also negotiating with Japan distrib Clockworx to have Ryan open for Vincenzo Natali’s Nothing (also produced by Copper Heart), when that feature launches in Japan in September. Natali (Cube) has a cult following in Japan, and the release plans for it are big.

‘It’s about trying to get as many people to see it as possible,’ Hoban says. ‘You never make a lot of money off short films, and on one as expensive as this [about $900,000 including freebies] you don’t make money off it. All you try to do is defray costs as much as you can.’

Ryan marks the eleventh Oscar for NFB productions or copros. Its other nominee this year, the copro Hardwood by Hubert Davis, lost out to the American Mighty Times: The Children’s March by Robert Houston in the short doc category.

Meanwhile, The Aviator, which was about 70% shot in Montreal, lost out to Million Dollar Baby in the best picture category, but it did pick up five trophies, four of which were in craft categories, which speaks to the infrastructure and crews in Quebec.

Montreal film commissioner Daniel Bissonnette is particularly proud of the award for art direction bestowed upon Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo. But he makes special mention of local art director Claude Paré.

‘To my mind, it was really Claude leading his team of 50 to 60 people in the art department that made the difference, in terms of being able to render everything that [production designer] Dante Ferretti had only imagined,’ he says.

The Oscars proved bittersweet for Toronto distrib ThinkFilm. On the plus side, the doc Born into Brothels, for which it holds U.S. and Canadian rights, took the prize for best doc feature. The film tells the story of the children of prostitutes in Calcutta. ThinkFilm president and CEO Jeff Sackman says its release was carefully staggered to build Oscar buzz.

In the week after the Oscar win, the distrib went to 65 prints from 37 in the U.S. and Canada, with plans for 100 the following week, with the Oscar win central in all promotions. Including the first weekend after the Oscars, the film had taken in US$1.1 million at the box office; Sackman is hoping ultimately for US$5 million.

‘It’s just not the type of film that people would necessarily be inclined to go see on its description, so the validation of the Oscar opens the door for them to check it out,’ Sackman says.

On the downside, Annette Bening, star of the feature Being Julia, for which ThinkFilm has Canadian rights and which Sackman’s partner Robert Lantos produced, lost out in the best actress category to Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby.

‘Annette looked like the favorite through November-December, and then all of a sudden Million Dollar Baby got the momentum and [Warner Bros.] got behind it and just pushed it and pushed it,’ Sackman says.

This year’s Oscar telecast, hosted by comedian Chris Rock, drew a year-high 5.4 million viewers for caster CTV, up 3% over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research, although ratings in the U.S. were down 5%.

-www.oscars.org