29th Canadian Film Awards

The 29th Canadian Film Awards were held on September 21, 1978 to honour achievements in Canadian film.^[1] They were the last Canadian Film Awards ceremony to be held before the program was taken over by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and restructured into the new Genie Awards.^[2]

This year's awards had nearly been cancelled. Members of the Canadian Association of Motion Picture Producers (CAMPP), who were not happy with the CFA's jury system, insisted on an academy-style system where all members received nominated rights for the Best Feature Film category. They threatened to withdraw all member films from competition. When CFA chairman Julius Kohanyi agreed to the change, ACTRA withdrew its participation, charging that the change was hasty and impractical. Eventually, CAMPP agreed to a proposal which allowed its members two votes for Best Feature Film in the pre-selection stage, while the other associations received one vote in each category.^[3]

In addition, the CFA board introduced a Co-Production category, for films co-produced by Canadian and foreign producers. When added to the 136 entries in 31 categories, this made pre-selection more difficult. The bigger problem was that the CFA's own rules did not allow any film crew members on co-productions to receive craft awards. Lawyers for the co-produced film Power Play obtained a court injunction which blocked the CFA presentation unless the Canadian craftspeople on the film were considered eligible for awards. The situation was resolved by moving Power Play to the Feature Film category; the co-production category was scrapped.^[3]

The ceremony was hosted by John Candy and Catherine O'Hara, and was held at the conclusion of the 1978 Festival of Festivals.^[4] The CBC broadcast a one-hour special featuring highlights of the show.