Nine Canadian industry icons including Norman Jewison and Moses Znaimer have been inducted into the first annual Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame, announced by Playback publisher Peter Vamos on Wednesday.

‘The goal is to honor those dedicated individuals who have made the most significant contributions to Canadian entertainment through the decades,’ explains Vamos. ‘We didn’t want another exhaustive awards list covering everything conceivable in creative, industry and technical categories. So we created these six categories because they cover the vastest possible array of talent and entrepreneurship.’

The inaugural recipients and their categories are: filmmaker and Canadian Film Centre founder Norman Jewison (creative), actor Gordon Pinsent (talent), Citytv cofounder Moses Znaimer (television), Andre Link and John Dunning, cofounders of Cinepix, which evolved into Lions Gate Films (feature film), Michael Spencer, the first head of the Canadian Film Development Corporation – today Telefilm Canada (industry builder), and three posthumous recipients in the pioneer category: CBC journalist Barbara Frum, former Astral Media boss Harold Greenberg and legendary director Claude Jutra.

The awards will be presented June 26 in Toronto. Each inductee will be added to an online hall of fame, due to launch June 25, coinciding with a special report in Playback magazine.

The members of the jury were Playback editor Mark Dillon, actress Wendy Crewson, director Sturla Gunnarsson, CFC exec director Slawko Klymkiw, CFTPA chair Ira Levy, Maple Pictures co-president Brad Pelman, CanWest MediaWorks VP Christine Shipton and Park Ex Pictures president Kevin Tierney.