In a bizarre twist, the Canadian Academy of Film & Television chose Passchendaele, Paul Gross' flag-waving World War I melodrama about Canadian valor, as the best Canadian film of 2008. I say bizarre because even though Passchendaele was in the running for a best film Genie Award, neither its screenplay nor (writer-)director Gross had even been nominated (though Gross, who didn't attend the ceremony as he was filming in Los Angeles, managed to get a best actor nod).
Passchendaele won five other awards: best art direction, costume design, sound, sound editing, and a special prize for the most (financially) successful Canadian film of the year.
Passchendaele has been hailed by some as a Canadian blockbuster to rival Hollywood productions, but detractors assert that though perhaps as big and loud as some Hollywood movies, Passchendaele is also just as shallow and simple-minded. (Paulitics offers an interesting commentary on both the film and the reactions to it by some in the Canadian press.)
With 8 nominations, including best picture, best direction (Benoît Pilon), best actor (Natar Ungalaaq), and best original screenplay (Bernard Émond), The Necessities of Life was the favorite to dominate the 2009 Genies. It ended up with four awards, including best director, original screenplay, actor, and editing (Richard Comeau).
Summing it up, enough members of the Canadian Academy decided that the best written and best directed film of the year wasn't as good as a box-office hit that failed to even be nominated for its direction or screenplay.
By the way, The Necessities of Life tells the story of a tuberculosis-suffering Inuit hunter (Ungalaaq) who is sent to a sanatorium in the Quebec City of the early 1950s. The inevitable clash of cultures worsens the hunter's condition, but a bicultural boy helps him bridge the gap between those two radically different worlds. The Necessities of Life, which won Quebec's Prix Jutra, also happened to be Canada's submission for the 2009 best foreign-language film Academy Award.
This year, several non-Canadians were up for acting awards, including Swedish veteran Max von Sydow, Americans Susan Sarandon and Ellen Burstyn, Indian superstar Preity Zinta, and British actress Rosamund Pike. Burstyn (above) ended up winning the best actress Genie for The Stone Angel, in which she plays a proud and arrogant woman who tries to come to terms with her difficult past.
Among the other winners were best supporting actress Kristin Booth for Young People Fucking; best supporting actor Callum Keith Rennie, best known internationally for his role in the Showtime series Californication, for Normal; and Marie-Sissi Labrèche and Lyne Charlebois for their adapted screenplay for Borderline (above, which Charlebois also directed), a sexually charged drama about a young woman (Isabelle Blais) who has trouble separating love from sex.
Throughout the evening, hosted by Los Angeles-based actor Dave Foley, presenters and winners criticized the current right-wing Canadian government for its neglect — at times outright hostility — toward the Canadian film and television industry, especially the Canadian Broadcasting Company.
“Clearly a strong message was sent over the last few months to the Conservatives … that their mockery of the Canadian arts wasn't necessarily serving them well with voters,” said actress-director Sarah Polley, whose Away from Her received two Oscar nominations last year. “I think they've certainly changed the way they are talking about the arts, but their actions in terms of the CBC are not encouraging.”
Sarah Polley quote: Toronto's Globe and Mail
Tiburon Film Festival Awards 2009
I watched the movie,
It was great but to much talking and not enough action. Also facts were inaccurate.
In the movie it said 5000 canadians died? when it was 16000
The necessities of life was the BEST film of the year. The Best Canadian Film.
It should have won the Genie.
It's ridiculous that it didn't.
What were those people thinking? Have they gotten as bad as the Oscars?
C'est qu'il faut pour vivre was so much better. They didn't want to give the big award to a film Quebecois.