Ararat, Atom Egoyan's personal testament about the Armenian genocide, was declared best Canadian feature film of 2002 at the Genie Awards ceremony last night.
The film also picked up two acting awards: best actress for Arsinée Khanjian in the role of a woman struggling to reconcile her life in the present with the burden of historical memory, and best supporting actor to Elias Koteas for his portrayal of a Turkish actor in a film being produced by Armenians convinced of the villainy of his ancestors.
"Four years ago I challenged Atom to make a film about the tragic story of his people, the Armenians," said Ararat producer Robert Lantos, who accepted the best-picture award in Mr. Egoyan's absence. "And I said if he did, I would stand by him."
Ararat also won awards for musical score and costume, ending the night with five in all.
The year's other heavyweight contender was David Cronenberg's Spider. Mr. Cronenberg won the Genie for best direction, but the film did not win any of its five other nominations. Surprisingly, none of its British stars — Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Lynn Redgrave — even received an acting nomination.
"I'm delighted with my award, but I don't know what to think about the acting nominations," Mr. Cronenberg said from Minneapolis, where he is promoting the film. Noting that American actor William Hurt also went without a nomination for his work in the feature Rare Birds, Mr. Cronenberg suggested that this year there was an unstated bias against foreign performers. "It would be possible to set up the Genies to exclude foreigners if that's what you want to do. But you should be up-front about it."
Montreal actor Luc Picard won for best actor in the movie Savage Messiah (filmed in English for television but dubbed to French for its popular theatre release in Quebec). He plays a deranged cult leader who terrorizes his female followers. Pascale Montpetit won best supporting actress for her work in the same film, which was inspired by the true story of cult leader Roch Thériault.
"It was hard to play the role" of Thériault, Mr. Picard said. "I have played pyschopaths before, but they were fictional characters."
He found it difficult to reconcile the character's ferocity with his attractiveness to women. "And it was especially difficult to play a scene where he tells a four-year-old kid to slap his mother." The film's message, he added, is "Stay away from guys like that."
Deepa Mehta won the best original screenplay award for Bollywood/Hollywood, and Peter Mettler took home the Genie for best documentary for Gambling, Gods and LSD.
Ms. Mehta, who is about to start a promotional tour for Bollywood in the United States, laughed about the coincidence that Hollywood has just released a very similar film, The Guru. "That's what the Americans do; they see an idea and they jump right in. Even their marketing campaign looked like ours." But she is certain she has the better film. It has already been released on 800 screens in India.
Other winners at the ceremony in the Metro Convention Centre were Perfect Pie (best cinematography), Savage Messiah (best adapted screenplay), Suddenly Naked (best editing), Saint Monica (best original song, Com Estas Asas), Almost America (best art design), I Shout Love (best short drama), and The Hungry Squid (best animated short).
Keith Behrman won the Claude Jutra Award for best direction of a first feature for his Flower & Garnet. Heritage Minister Sheila Copps and Robert Daudelin, founder of the Cinémathèque québécoise, received awards for outstanding contributions to the Canadian film industry.
The third instalment of the Quebec hockey trilogy Les Boys won the Golden Reel for biggest box office, garnering $5.3-million, almost exclusively in the Quebec market. Producer Christian Larouche clapped a hand over his partner Richard Goudreau's face, claiming "he always says stupid things" at award ceremonies. But Mr. Goudreau quite graciously said that the real box-office breakthrough was the record $4-million garnered in the English-Canadian market by Robert Lantos's Men With Brooms. Mr. Larouche added that he hoped someday English Canadians would go to the Les Boys films in such numbers. "You'll like it; you'll fall in love with our movies."
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