N.S. production designer comes out on top with Oscar win

CITYnews halifax/ By Steve Gow

An artist from Nova Scotia was one of the big winners at Sunday’s Academy Awards.

Tamara Deverell took home the Oscar for Best Production Design for her work on the Guillermo del Toro film, Frankenstein.

Following her acceptance on stage along with set decorator Shane Vieau, the Cape Breton resident mentioned the province’s recent budget cuts when taking questions from reporters.

“Arts are really important,” said Deverell. “I’m living in Nova Scotia right now, which is getting arts cuts by our provincial governnment, which is making it really difficult to support artists like me and Shane. We need to grow, young people who need to learn art is important. It is essentially to our human culture and well-being.”

In an interview ahead of the ceremony, Deverell, who is also on the board for the Inverness County Centre for the Arts spoke about how the budget cuts of $130 million from government grants, including funding for arts, tourism and culture programs will impact around 20 per cent of the ICCA’s operating costs.

“If you just want to talk about it in economic terms, (art) supports the tourism sector because people come here, they come to golf, they come to hear music, they come to look at art, and those are the kinds of things we do at the centre,” Deverell told CityNews Halifax.

Sunday’s award was the production designer’s first win, but second Oscar nod after being recognized in 2023 for the film, Nightmare Alley.