Crave and APTN lumi limited series Little Bird has soared as the highest-nominated program for the 12th annual Canadian Screen Awards, followed by the final seasons of CBC comedies Sort Of and Workin’ Moms.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced nominees in 156 television, film, and digital media categories on Wednesday (March 6). Little Bird picked up 19 nominations overall, with Sort Of and Workin’ Moms, coming in at 18 and 12 nominations, respectively.

New additions to the TV categories this year include Best Comedy Special and Best Political News Program or Series, and Best Ensemble Performance for both drama and comedy categories.

Nominations for the six-part limited series Little Bird (pictured), produced by Rezolution Pictures and Original Pictures, include Best Drama Series and Best Direction for Zoe Hopkins and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers. It has also earned Best Lead Performer, Drama Series nods for Darla Contois and Ellyn Jade, in addition to Best Supporting Performer for Braeden Clarke, Best Guest Performance for Imajyn Cardinal, and Best Ensemble Performance.

The series is also nominated for best visual research, photography, picture editing, sound, production design or art direction, costume design, make-up, hair and casting.

Also vying for Best Drama Series is CTV’s Transplant (Sphere Media), which has a total of nine nominations. The nods include Best Writing for Joseph Kay and Rachel Langer, Best Lead Performer nods for Hamza Haq and Laurence Leboeuf, Best Guest Performance for Daniel Maslany, and Best Supporting Performer for Ayisha Issa.

Fellow drama series nominee, CBC’s Essex County (First Generation Films, 171 Studios), has six nominations overall, including Best Writing for Jeff Lemire and Eilis Kirwan, and Best Supporting Performer for Kevin Durand. It also earned ensemble performance, photography, and picture editing nods.

Contenders in the category also include CBC’s Plan B (Production KOTV), which is up for two awards; and Hollywood Suite’s Slasher: Ripper (Shaftesbury), which has also garnered two Best Supporting Performer nominations for Salvatore Antonio and Paula Brancati.

The nominations for CBC’s Sort Of (Sphere Media) include Best Direction, Comedy, for Fab Filippo; one nod for Filippo in Best Writing and two for Bilal Baig; Best Supporting Performer for Amanda Cordner, Ellora Patnaik and Supinder Wraich, and Best Guest Performance for Ali Hassan. The comedy is also up for best photography, picture editing, sound, production design or art direction, costume design, make-up, hair, original music, and original music – original song.

Nominations for Workin’ Moms (Wolf + Rabbit Entertainment) include Best Comedy Series; Best Lead Performer nods for Dani Kind and Catherine Reitman; Best Supporting Performer for Sarah McVie; and Best Guest Performance for Dan Aykroyd and Jann Arden. The comedy is also nominated in the ensemble performance, photography, picture editing, hair and original music categories.

CBC’s Son of a Critch (Project 10 Productions, Take the Shot Productions) is another contender for best comedy. The series has seven overall nominations, including Best Lead Performer nods for Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Mark Critch; Best Guest Performance for Jay Baruchel; and nominations in hair, original music and casting categories.

Crave’s Bria Mack Gets A Life and Letterkenny have both been nominated for a total of five awards, including Best Comedy Series.

Bria Mack Gets A Life has picked up nods for Best Direction for Kelly Fyfe-Marshall, Best Writing for Sasha Leigh Henry, and best editing and best production design or art design.

Letterkenny has earned nominations for Best Direction for Jacob Tierney, in addition to nominations in the stunt, ensemble performance and casting categories. Both series are produced by New Metric Media.

CTV’s Shelved (Counterfeit Pictures) is also competing for Best Comedy Series, in addition to Best Lead Performer for Chris Sandiford, ensemble performance and casting trophies.

The Best TV Movie category nominees include the W Network’s Christmas Island and Take Me Back to Christmas Island, both produced by Vortex Media. Lifetime’s The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story (KR MB Films), which also picked up a Best Direction nod for Simone Stock; CTV Life Channel’s Never Too Late To Celebrate (Muse Entertainment); and CBC’s Richard III (Melbar Entertainment Group) are also competing.

Factual, lifestyle and unscripted

Crave’s Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. The World (Blue Ant Studios) leads the unscripted/factual nominees with a total of eight nods, including Best Reality/Competition Program or Series.

The series is also up for Best Direction for Shelagh O’Brien; Best Writing for Brandon Ash-Mohammed, Trevor Boris, Spencer Fritz and Kevin Hazlehurst; Best Host or Presenter, Factual or Reality/Competition for Brooke Lynn Hytes, Brad Goreski and Traci Melchor; as well as best picture editing, sound and casting (non-fiction) nods.

CBC’s Canada’s Ultimate Challenge (Insight Productions) follows with a total of four nominations, and CBC Gem’s Best in Miniature (marblemedia) with three.

Competing for Best Lifestyle Program or Series are HGTV’s Property Brothers: Forever Home (Scott Brothers Entertainment), which is also up for Best Host for Drew Scott and Jonathan Silver Scott; HGTV’s Sarah’s Mountain Escape (Insight Productions), which has a total of three nominations, and Scott’s Vacation House Rules (House Rules 4 Productions).

CBC Gem’s CBC Indigenous: Time to Eat, and OUTtv’s Drag Heals (Border2Border Productions), also nominated for best host for Tracey Erin Smith, round out the titles competing for Best Lifestyle Program or Series.

On the documentary side, CBC’s The Man Who Stole Einstein’s Brain (Frequent Flyer Films) tops the list with six nominations, including Best History Documentary Program or Series, Best Direction for Michelle Shephard, Best Writing for Shephard and Carolyn Abraham, and additional nods for best picture editing, sound and original music.

The category for Best History Documentary Program or Series also includes three other CBC series: Mi’kma’ki (Wanderer Entertainment), Secret Agents of the Underground Railroad (Attraction) and Stuff the British Stole (Cream Productions, Wooden Horse TV), and CBC Gem’s Telling Our Story (Terre Innue).

Documentary works with multiple nominations include Citytv’s Black Community Mixtapes (OYA Media Group) and CBC’s Black Life: Untold Stories (Studio 112, Northwood Entertainment), which both picked up five nods, and CBC’s Last of the Right Whales (HitPlay Productions), which earned three nominations.

Children’s Media

Apple TV+’s Pinecone & Pony, produced by First Generation Films, leads the nominees for Children or Preschool series with eight nods, including Best Animated Program or Series, Best Direction and Best Writing in the Animation category.

Contenders for Best Animated Program or Series include TVO Kids’ Interstellar Ella (Apartment 11 Productions, Fabrique Fantastique) and Wild Kratts (9 Story Media Group, Kratt Brothers Company), and Apple TV+’s The Snoopy Show (WildBrain) and Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie (WildBrain).

CBC’s Aunty B’s House (Headspinner Productions) is competing for six trophies, including Best Pre-School Program or Series, Best Direction, Children’s or Youth, and Best Writing in the Pre-school category.

Also competing for Best Pre-School Program or Series are TVOKids’ Paw Patrol and Treehouse TV’s Builder Brothers Dream Factory, which picked up three other nominations apiece; Family Jr.’s Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood (WildBrain); and CBC’s Dino Ranch.

The YTV series Popularity Papers (Aircraft Pictures, Wexworks Media) picked up six nods, while The Hardy Boys (Lambur Productions) picked up five nominations, including Best Children’s or Youth Fiction Program or Series.

Family Channel’s Home Sweet Rome is also a contender for Best Children’s or Youth Fiction Program or Series, and has picked up three other nominations. Fellow Family Channel title The Malory Towers Christmas (Wildbrain) and CBC Gem’s Macy Murdoch (Shaftesbury) are also up for the award.

Competing for Best Children’s or Youth Non-Fiction Program or Series are TVO’s All-round Champion (marblemedia), which has two other nominations, and three TVOKids series: Dream It To Be It (Lopii DITBI Productions), and Apartment 11-produced series Green Squad and Sunny’s Quest.

Digital media

True West Films’ The Drop and Sphere Media’s How to Fail as a Popstar lead the digital media nominations with five nods each, including Best Web Program or Series, Fiction.

The Drop is also up for Best Direction, Web Program or Series and Best Lead Performance, Web Program or Series for director and star Aisha Evelyna, with Dani Pagliarello and Aurora Browne also nominated for performance honours.

Nominations for How to Fail as a Popstar include Best Writing, Web Program or Series for Vivek Shraya; Best Lead Performance, Web Program or Series for Adrian Pavone; Best Supporting Performance, Web Program or Series for Nadine Bhabha, and Best Picture Editing.

Additional nominees for Best Web Program or Series, Fiction are LoCo Motion Pictures’ I Hate People, People Hate Me, which earned a total of four nominations; Obvious Allegory’s Gay Mean Girls, which picked up three nods; and Filmcoop’s Less Than Kosher, which is also nominated for picture editing.

Fae Pictures’ Streams Flow From A River picked up four nominations overall, including Best Direction Web Program or Series for Christopher Yip, Best Writing for Yip and Leonard Chan, and Best Lead Performance, Web Program or Series for Liam Ma.

Vying for Best Web Program or Series, Non-Fiction are the 2022 Reel Asian Awards, CBC’s Being Black in Canada: Friends and Allies and Here & Queer, Big Cedar Films’ Farm Crime and CBC Kids’ Indigenous Futures: How these teens are reclaiming their joy.

The winners will be revealed during Canadian Screen Week across six ceremonies, starting on May 28 and ending on May 31 with the broadcast show hosted by Mae Martin on CBC and CBC Gem.

Nominees in additional categories can be found below. The full list of nominees is available on the CSA website.

Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program

Category: Woman
Howard Fraiberg
CBC Marketplace: Mortgage Fraud Caught on Camera: Undercover Investigation
Coming Home | Wanna Icipus Kupi
Inside the Statue Wars
Naked: Sex and Gender

Rob Stewart Award for Best Science or Nature Documentary Program or Series

Ageless Gardens
Apocalypse: Plan B
True Survivors
The Water Brothers

Best Documentary Program

Broken – The Toxic Culture of Canadian Gymnastics
Charlotte’s Castle
The Cowichan Sweater: Our Knitted Legacy
Offside: The Harold Ballard Story
War for the Woods

Cover photo by Steve Ackerman