The days when a male performer and a female performer each won an award for a given category during the Gemini ceremony are now a thing of the past. The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television – Quebec section announced Monday that all of its acting categories will now be gender neutral.
For example, the categories “Best Male Lead: Drama Series” and “Best Female Lead: Drama Series” will be combined into a single category, “Best Lead Actor: Drama Series”.
The same goes for the categories “Best leading role: annual or daily drama series” – note also the grouping of the annual and daily divisions in this category –, “Best leading role: comedy or dramatic comedy”, “Best leading role: youth”, as well as the counterparts for the “Best supporting role” of these same categories.
“These categories may have up to 8 finalists each, in order to allow more artists, regardless of their genre, to shine in these categories”, explained the Academy in a press release.
The Academy indicated that this redesign is part of the goal that “everyone still has their place in this competitive competition”. She added that the overhaul of the categories has been under consideration since 2021.
The abolition of gendered categories is part of a broader desire to also merge several categories, in order to “better meet the expectations of its members and follow the evolution of the industry”, so that there will be next year 88 categories, rather than 139.
Apart from the merging of gender categories, the other combinations mostly affect very similar divisions. The Academy believes that these changes will “increase the competition’s competitiveness and, by the same token, improve the value of the prizes awarded”.
In addition, in the world of web series, the Academy made a point of specifying in its regulations that the series in the running in the categories “Best annual drama series” and “Best daily drama series” must have been broadcast on television to be eligible.
The weighting leading to the final selection of winners for the program categories has also been increased, from 10% to 20%, “so that productions that stand out remarkably on this criterion can be highlighted”.
The 38e edition of the Gemini Awards Gala will take place on Sunday, September 17, 2023, while the Industry Gala will be presented three days earlier. All finalists will be announced on June 15, 2023.