Maxim Gaudette in Polytechnique (top); Jim Sturgess in Fifty Dead Men Walking (middle); Madeline Piujuq Ivalu, Paul-Dylan Ivalu in Before Tomorrow (bottom)
The top Genie 2010 nominees were announced by Away from Her star Gordon Pinsent and Sundance 2010 Special Jury Prize winner Tatiana Maslany. They are Denis Villeneuve's Polytechnique (11 nominations), Charles Officer’s Nurse.Fighter.Boy (ten nominations), Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu’s Before Tomorrow (nine), Patrice Sauvé's Grande Ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key (eight), and Kari Skogland’s Fifty Dead Men Walking (seven).
With the exception of The Master Key, all of the aforementioned titles are in the running for Best Film.
"I'm an emotional guy," Charles Officer explained after whoops of joy were followed by profuse tears when he learned that Nurse.Fighter.Boy had received ten nods. "The film itself was an emotional journey for the characters. If you're a part of that film, it has to be coming from somewhere, which is myself."
Heavy drama dominated the Genies: The black-and-white Polytechnique, made in both French and English, chronicles the events that led to the massacre of 14 female students in Montreal in 1989; Before Tomorrow features an ill-fated Inuit hunting trip in the mid-19th century; Nurse.Fighter.Boy is a gritty urban drama about a former boxer who becomes attached to a nurse and her son; and the Irish Troubles are the focus of Fifty Dead Men Walking.
Jim Donovan’s 3 Saisons, featuring several intertwined stories a la Babel, is the other Best Film nominee. It's also the only one in that group without a matching Best Director nod. Instead, Bruce McDonald was shortlisted for the horror thriller Pontypool.
Atom Egoyan’s Adoration received only two nominations, for screenwriting and for best supporting actor Scott Speedman. De Pére en Flic, winner of the Golden Reel Award given to the most successful Canadian film of the year, is up for three Genies: best original screenplay, and best supporting actors Patrick Drolet and Rémy Girard.
The 30th Genie Awards will take place Monday, April 12 at Toronto's Kool Haus Entertainment Complex, a live entertainment venue located on the city's waterfront.
Quote: Toronto Star
Photo: Polytechnique (Alliance Films); Before Tomorrow (Igloolik Isuma Productions); Fifty Dead Men Walking (HandMade Films)