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Montreal Oscar stories Two of the city's award-winners reminisce by MATTHEW HAYS
John Weldon, an animator at the NFB, remembers only too well the day he learned about his Oscar nomination (for the seven-minute animated short Special Delivery, co-directed with Eunice Macaulay). "I was sitting in a cutting room, not thinking about it at all. An executive producer popped his head in and said 'It looks like you'll be going to Hollywood. Your film's just been nominated.' I was so surprised. I ran around the animation department, telling everybody. "When we attended the ceremony, I wasn't seated by the aisle so I assumed we hadn't won. It was a real surprise when they called out our names." Weldon won his Oscar in 1979, the 40th anniversary of the NFB, so Weldon said it held special significance for him and for the crown corporation. But he doesn't display his Oscar on his mantelpiece. "It's in a cabinet somewhere, I can't remember," he says. Terre Nash, who was nominated for If You Love this Planet in 1983, wasn't even sure she'd make the ceremony, but not for lack of trying. The Reagan administration had labelled the film, which documents peacenik Dr. Helen Caldicott's moving lecture about the effects of nuclear war, as propaganda, strictly limiting its distribution. "The official at the border asked me if I was going to L.A. for business or pleasure," recalls Nash, "and I said, 'Both.' She knew who I was and asked if my trip had anything to do with the Oscars. 'Are you involved with this film that was banned by my president?' 'Well, I made it,' I told her. 'Well, good for you--I hope you win!' she said, and that was it. I was across the border." Nash said she wasn't the least bit surprised when she won. If You Love this Planet was getting accolades everywhere and Reagan officials' efforts to suppress it had backfired, transforming it into a don't-miss film. "I was sitting right on the aisle. When I won it felt like a huge political victory. "The experience of being at the Oscars is simply very surreal. You're surrounded by all these people you've watched on screen for years. And they're all a lot shorter than you thought they'd be. "Ben Kingsley, who won that year for Gandhi--also a movie about peace--came up and gave me a big kiss and said, 'We have to make more movies like this.' Nash has kept her Oscar in a place some may find odd. "I keep it in my bathroom. I don't know why, I just always have. I was robbed a few years ago and they clearly didn't go into the bathroom, since the Oscar was untouched. It turned out to be a good place to keep it after all." Canadian film buffs and Oscar winners alike will undoubtedly be rooting for Richard Condie, whose NFB-produced animated short La Salla has been nominated for an Oscar this year. The NFB has been nominated for 61 Academy Awards in its 58-year history and has won 10. The Academy Awards airs this Monday, March 24, at 8 p.m. on CFCF 12 |
Montrealers will be busy getting their popcorn buttered and handing out voting cards to partygoers this Monday night. An essential ritual for movie buffs everywhere, the American Academy Awards were watched by a record 1.1 billion people last year. As locals gather to celebrate the good choices and brood over the bad, they would do well to remember there are winners in our midst.