Gemini Awards

Gemini Award
Awarded for	Best television productions in Canada
Country	Canada
Presented by	Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television
First awarded	1986
Last awarded	2011
Website	http://www.geminiawards.ca/
Related	Canadian Screen Awards Prix Gémeaux

The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's English-language television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in the United States and the BAFTA Television Awards in the United Kingdom. First held in 1986 to replace the ACTRA Award, the ceremony celebrated Canadian television productions with awards in 87 categories, along with other special awards such as lifetime achievement awards. The Academy had previously presented the one-off Bijou Awards in 1981, inclusive of some television productions.

The awards' name was an allusion to Castor and Pollux, a mythological pair of twins;^[1] this was in reference to Canada's linguistic duality of English and French, with the Academy's separate awards presentation for French-language television production named the Gémeaux Awards. The statuette, designed by Toronto artist Scott Thornley, evoked twins through a design that essentially created two faces at the front and back of the statuette.^[2]

In April 2012, the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced that the Gemini Awards and the Genie Awards would be discontinued and replaced by a new award ceremony dedicated to all forms of Canadian media, including television, film, and digital media, dubbed the "Canadian Screen Awards".^[3] The first annual Canadian Screen Awards were held on 4 March 2013.^[4]