Arthur Drache among Canadian cultural figures honored at home and abroad

Ottawa, Jan­u­ary 28^th, 2004 – Long­time arts advo­cate and char­i­ta­ble sec­tor lawyer and advo­cate Arthur Drache was among those appointed by Her Excel­lency, the Right Hon­ourable Adri­enne Clark­son, to the Order of Canada yesterday.

The Ottawa-based Drache is a respected lawyer who has spent years guid­ing arts and non-profit orga­ni­za­tions through the per­ilous maze of fed­eral tax law. He has shared a wealth of knowl­edge with many arts orga­ni­za­tions through pro bono work, and his tire­less efforts have led to sub­stan­tial pub­lic pol­icy changes for char­i­ties. Drache cur­rently serves as Sec­re­tary to the Board of Gov­er­nors of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts.

In a joint let­ter nom­i­nat­ing Drache for the Order of Canada, CCA National Direc­tor  Megan Davis Williams and Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion Exec­u­tive Direc­tor John McAv­ity noted the depth of his ded­i­ca­tion to these causes:

“He has offered sup­port to artists in dis­pute with tax law who could not pay him, and to orga­ni­za­tions which con­vinced him to do just one more thing for free.”

Among the other mem­bers of the arts com­mu­nity hon­oured yes­ter­day were:

• Ronald Romp­key, writer and pro­fes­sor at Memo­r­ial Uni­ver­sity, mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors of the Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil, and for­mer mem­ber of the CCA’s Board of Direc­tors (1994 to 2000)
• Vin­cent Massey Tovell, radio and tele­vi­sion pro­ducer who played a piv­otal role in the estab­lish­ment of impor­tant cul­tural insti­tu­tions like the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts and the National The­atre School. 2001 recip­i­ent of the CCA’s Diplôme d’honneur
• Arthur Spohr, for­mer artis­tic direc­tor of and advi­sor to the Royal Win­nipeg Bal­let (Pro­moted to Com­pan­ion of the Order of Canada)
• Veron­ica Ten­nant, author and for­mer Prima Bal­le­rina for the National Bal­let of Canada. (Pro­moted to Com­pan­ion of the Order of Canada)
• David W. Fos­ter, music pro­ducer. (Pro­moted to Offi­cer of the Order of Canada)
• Daniel Gau­thier, co-founder and for­mer pres­i­dent of Cirque du Soleil
• Guy Lal­ib­erté, co-founder and chief exec­u­tive of Cirque du Soleil
• Roy E. Peter­son, Van­cou­ver Sun edi­to­r­ial cartoonist
• Guy C. Van­der­haeghe, award-winning writer and mem­ber of the New Cana­dian Library’s advi­sory board
• William Wein­traub, writer, jour­nal­ist and film­maker. Author of Why Rock the Boat?
• William J.S. Boyle, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer at Toronto’s Har­bourfront Centre
• Donna Butt, co-founder and artis­tic direc­tor of the Ris­ing Tide The­atre Com­pany in Newfoundland
• Robert Cooper, Choral con­duc­tor cur­rently with Cho­rus Nia­gara, the Orpheus Choir of Toronto and the Opera in Con­cert Chorus
• Susan Dyer Knight, founder and artis­tic direc­tor of the New­found­land Sym­phony Youth Choir
• Heather Ostertag, pres­i­dent of the Foun­da­tion to Assist Cana­dian Tal­ent on Records (FACTOR)
• Tim­o­thy Por­te­ous, for­mer direc­tor of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts and for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Ontario Col­lege of Art
• Leonard P. Rat­zlaff, Pro­fes­sor of choral stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Alberta
• Dou­glas Riley, per­former, arranger and com­poser, for­mer musi­cal direc­tor for the Famous Peo­ple Players
• James I. Robb, Visual artist whose paint­ings, sketches and pho­tographs doc­u­ment the Yukon
• Serge Tur­geon, For­mer pres­i­dent of the Union des artistes and cur­rent direc­tor of the Théâtre du Rideau Vert. Pre­sented with a Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal by the CCA
• Ken­neth Welsh, one of Canada’s most accom­plished the­atre and film actors
• Betty Jane Wylie, play­wright and for­mer chair of the Writ­ers Union of Canada

For more infor­ma­tion on the Order of Canada recip­i­ents, see http://www.news.gc.ca/cfmx/CCP/view/en/index.cfm?articleid=75919&

Cana­dian film­mak­ers hon­oured internationally

Cana­dian film­mak­ers have been hon­oured promi­nantly over the past year, and in the past few weeks in particular.

Les inva­sions bar­bares (The Bar­bar­ian Inva­sions) received Oscar nom­i­na­tions on Tues­day morn­ing for Best Orig­i­nal Screen­play and Best For­eign Lan­guage Film. The film had also received nom­i­na­tions ear­lier in the month for Best Film not in the Eng­lish Lan­guage and Best Screen­play at the British Acad­emy of Film and Tele­vi­sion Arts Awards (BAFTA).

Les inva­sions bar­bares has already won two awards at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, and was named Best For­eign Film by the Broad­cast Film Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion and the National Board of Review in the U.S.. It also received the Screen Inter­na­tional Award at the Euro­pean Film Awards, best­ing Amer­i­can block­busters like Kill Bill Vol. 1, Find­ing Nemo and Mys­tic River.

Also receiv­ing two Oscar nom­i­na­tions was Les triplettes de Belleville, a France-Canada copro­duc­tion. The film received nom­i­na­tions for Best Ani­mated Film and Best Orig­i­nal Song.

Cana­dian films also received audi­ence awards at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val this month. The Cor­po­ra­tion, a sharp and inci­sive look at cor­po­rate cul­ture won the World Cin­ema Doc­u­men­tary Audi­ence Award, while La grande séduc­tion, a tale of a small Que­bec fish­ing village’s attempt to keep a vis­it­ing doc­tor, won the World Cin­ema Audi­ence Award.

At a time when there is tough talk about belt-tightening within all fed­eral gov­ern­ment depart­ments, and the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage in par­tic­u­lar, it is impor­tant to note that all four of these inter­na­tional suc­cesses were par­tially funded through Tele­film Canada, as well as other fed­eral and provin­cial fund­ing agen­cies. It is unlikely that Canada’s film­mak­ing excel­lence could have been demon­strated to a global audi­ence audi­ence with­out this funding.

http://www.thecorporation.tv/

http://www.lestriplettesdebelleville.com