Canadian animator Alan Barillaro won the Academy Award for best animated short film at the 89th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
His six-minute film Piper, produced by Pixar Animation Studios, follows a mother bird trying to teach her baby to find food on her own. His short beat out NFB-produced Blind Vaysha and Vancouver-based animator Robert Valley’s Pear Cider and Cigarettes, both of which were also nominated for an Oscar. The films also competed against Patrick Osborne’s Pearl and Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj’s Borrowed Time.
And while Denis Villeneuve didn’t win the best director prize for Arrival, his film did pick up one trophy. Montreal’s Sylvain Bellemare took home the Oscar for achievement in sound editing, with the creative saluting his hometown and director while accepting the award. Bellemare previously worked with Villeneuve on the Oscar-nominated Incendies.
Canadians Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye were also nominated for Arrival in the Sound Mixing category, but ultimately lost out to Kevin O’Connell for Hacksaw Ridge.
Other Canadians who were nominated for awards this year include Vancouver-based Bron Studios’ co-founder Aaron L. Gilbert, who served as executive producer and co-financier of Best Picture nominee Fences; Ryan Gosling, who received a Best Actor nod for his role in La La Land; Shawn Levy who coproduced Arrival, Howard Barish, who coproduced Ava DuVernay’s nominated documentary 13th; and Patrice Vermette who was up for best production design for Arrival.
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