A gam Darshi’s feature Donkeyhead leads nominations for the 2022 Leo Awards.

The annual awards were created to honour the British Columbia screen sector, and are run by the not-for-profit organization the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation of British Columbia. The winners will be announced across three ceremonies: two virtual events on July 5 and 6 and an in-person gala at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver.

Donkeyhead (Karma Film) earned 11 nominations overall, including Best Motion Picture. Darshi is up for three awards, including Best Direction, Best Screenwriting and Best Lead Performance – Female.

The film picked up four additional performance nominations, with Kim Coates up for Best Supporting Performance – Male; Balinder Johal and Sandy Sidhu for Best Supporting Performance – Female; and Stephen Lobo for Best Lead Performance – Male. Additional nominations are for Best Cinematography, Best Sound, and Best Musical Score.

Fellow Best Motion Picture nominee Drinkwater (Suitcase Charlie Films) came in close behind with 10 nominations, including Best Direction for Stephen Campanelli, Best Screenwriting for Luke Fraser, Best Supporting Performance – Male for Eric McCormack and Best Lead Performance – Female for Louriza Tronco. Additional nominations were for cinematography, picture editing, musical score, production design, and casting.

Rounding out the Best Motion Picture nominees are Trevor Mack’s Portraits From a Fire (produced by Rylan Friday, Kate Kroll and Mack), which garnered seven nominations overall; Elizabeth Lazebnik’s Be Still (Ceroma Films), up for six nods; Javier Badillo’s Roads of Ithriyah (Spit Shine Flicks, Wethic Media, Explorart Films, PK Studio Productions), with five nominations; and Nerina De Jager’s Amandla (Firegrass Films, M4gic-J Entertainment), which was the film’s only nomination.

Portraits From a Fire‘s nominations include Best Direction for Mack, as well as cinematography, picture editing, sound and musical score; Be Still nominations include Best Supporting Performance – Male for Daniel Arnold, Supporting Performance – Female for Meredith Hama-Brown, as well as cinematography, production design and costume design; while Roads of Ithriyah is also up for Best Direction for Badillo, Best Screenwriting for Badillo and Shayan Bayat, Best Lead Performance – Male for Bayat and Best Sound.

Van Helsing (Nomadic Pictures) led nominations for drama series with eight, including Best Dramatic Series. The Syfy series also picked up four performance nods with Best Lead Performance – Male for Aleks Paunovic, Best Guest Performance – Male for Jeffrey Ballard and Lobo (his second nomination following Donkeyhead), and Best Guest Performance – Female for Ali Liebert. The series was also nominated for Best Screenwriting for Gorrman Lee, costume design and make-up.

The other nominees for Best Drama Series include The CW’s Riverdale and Two Sentence Horror Stories, which earned seven nominations each; Global series Family Law (SEVEN24 Films, Lark Productions) with six total nods, and Netflix series Midnight Mass, which earned two overall nominations.

Family Law is also nominated for Best Direction for Andy Mikita, two Best Screenwriting nods for Susin Nielsen as well as Sonja Bennett and Corey Liu, Best Lead Performance – Female for Jewel Staite and Best Supporting Performance – Male for Luke Camilleri.

APTN’s Tribal (Prairie Dog Film + Television) also earned six nominations, including Best Musical Score and five performance nods. Among them are Best Lead Performance – Male for Brian Markinson, Best Supporting Performance – Male for Jesse Moss and Trevor Carroll, Best Supporting Performance – Female for Marci T. House and Best Guest Performance – Male for John Cassini.

Nominees for Best Television Movie are Right In Front Of Me (Muse Entertainment) A Clüsterfünke Christmas, A Dickens of a Holiday! (Timeless Pictures), Playing Cupid (Timeless Pictures), Secrets of a Marine’s Wife (Front Street Pictures), and The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls (Front Street Pictures).

Best Feature Length Documentary nominees are Dead Man’s Switch: A Crypto Mystery (Dimestore Productions), Handle With Care: The Legend of The Notic Streetball Crew (The Notic Studios), I Am Alfred Hitchcock (Network Entertainment), In The Rumbling Belly of Motherland (ChitChat Productions), and Pharma Bro (Blumhouse Productions). Up for Best Documentary Series are All Our Relations (Barbara Hager), British Columbia: An Untold History (Screen Siren Pictures), Moosemeat & Marmalade (May Street Productions), Visionary Gardeners (291 Film Company), and Yukon Harvest (Rogue River Films).

A full list of nominees are available on the Leo Awards website.