Thom Fitzgerald is still not sure what it is he wants to do with his life.

But, since he has never found such success as has recently come his way with his Genie-nominated directorial debut The Hanging Garden, there is a possibility he will make a career out of directing films, jests the filmmaker honored with this year’s Claude Jutra Award recognizing talented new feature film directors.

Fitzgerald attributes much of his sensibilities as a director to an acting background and not having taken the film school route.

A graduate of the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design, Fitzgerald says he approaches every shot as a picture. Choices of color are instinctively more important to him than they may be to a more industrial-trained director and add a unique quality to his work.

When it comes to nailing down his greatest filmmaking strengths, the 29-year-old Easterner finds himself without an answer. With a few more films under his belt, Fitzgerald says he may begin to figure that out.

Although Fitzgerald struggles to identify his particular stamp as a director, Jutra Award juror Paul Gratton, vice-chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television and station manager of Bravo!, says Fitzgerald’s strength lies in his inventive approach to dark material, particularly suicide, social rejection and sexuality.

‘He tackled the most depressing of all material with a witty and fresh take,’ says Gratton. ‘This is what announced the arrival of a great new talent. What more can you ask for from a first film?’

Fellow jury member Helga Stephenson, chair of Viacom Canada, says Fitzgerald’s daring and sensational narrative does not resemble that of a first-time filmmaker. She calls him a fabulous storyteller and mood creator.

Aside from a three-day stint as a pa on a Dutch miniseries shot in Halifax and a short-lived career as an extra, The Hanging Garden marks Fitzgerald’s first foray into filmmaking. Although his on-stage experience helped prepare him to some extent, Fitzgerald says he learned through exploration and relying on others with more experience in the realm.

He describes himself as empathetic and observational, which he attributes to being ‘sort of afraid of life as a kid,’ keeping him behind the scenes watching.

‘Writing and directing is simply about recreating 2,000 little moments from life that you observed,’ he says.

And as The Hanging Garden hits screens across the country, which Fitzgerald admits to being a little nervous about, he will begin shooting on his second effort, Beefcake, Nov. 21 in Halifax. The docudrama is about the experiences of male models working on the muscle mags of the ’50s and ’60s. Beefcake has been in the works for about three years and is being put together on a budget under $750,000, half of the price tag of The Hanging Garden.

No other projects are currently on Fitzgerald’s plate. ‘I’ve gotten several strange options thrown my way, but who knows what Satan I will sell my soul to next.’