The Leo Awards celebrate the breadth of the B.C. motion picture industry, from feature films to TV to documentaries to short-films to animation to reality television.
The trophies were handed out recently in Vancouver with several names from Prince George and region in the running. None of the known nominees from this area picked up the hardware, but several categories had local names.
The most notable spot on the gala agenda was the Best Lead Performance By A Male - Dramatic Series category, where half the contenders had direct connections to Prince George.
Steven Cree Molison was up for the award for his portrayal of popular character Daryl Fraser in the gritty series Blackstone while alongside him was Chad Willett up for his role in When Calls The Heart.
For Molison, it was his third nomination in the past five years in that category, one of them a victory.
For Willett, he was nominated as a producer in 2013 for Best Motion Picture for the film Becoming Redwood. He took home a Leo Award in 2010 for his role in the movie Cole, in the Best Supporting Performance By A Male In A Feature-Length Drama.
However, they and Jared Keeso also on the nomination list were not selected this year. The trophy went to Louis Ferreira for his acting work in the show Motive on which he portrays Detective Oscar Vega.
Another category with 50-50 chances was Best Documentary Series. Moberly Lake's Art Napoleon, the former chief of the Saulteau First Nation north of Prince George, is the co-star, theme song singer and co-producer (along with Mike Wavrecan and Hilary Pryor) of Moose Meat & Marmalade, a unique cooking show that combines forest ingredients with haute cuisine presentation.
Napoleon was in too tough against Ice Pilots NWT, one of the country's buzz-shows. They were the only other nominee in the tightly curated competition, and it was pilots over chefs this year for the Leo Award.
In the Best Performance - Youth Or Children's Program Or Series category, the winner was Frank C. Turner for the show Spooksville. Left standing among the finalists, though, was Fort St. James actor Dylan Playfair who earned his way onto the shortlist for his work on R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour.
A recent visitor to Prince George also earned a Leo Award nomination. Justin Rain, one of the special celebrity guests at Northern FanCon, was a finalist for Best Performance By A Male-Short Drama, for his part in Not Indian Enough.
