Montreal: The Reseau TVA crime drama Fortier (Aetios Productions) edged out four high-profile competitors to win this year’s Prix Gemeaux for best dramatic series. Scripted and produced by the prolific Fabienne Larouche, Fortier was nominated in a record 15 categories, coming away with three Gemeaux, including best supporting actor wins for Francois Papineau and Michele-Barbara Pelletier.

Fortier’s criminal profiler lead Sophie Lorain, last year’s winner of best actress in a drama series, lost out this year to Celine Bonnier. Bonnier won the best actress Gemeaux for her remarkable portrayal of a stoned-out mom in the hard-hitting Radio-Canada youth crime drama Tag (Motion International).

Luc Guerin was the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s choice for best actor in a drama series, winning for his role as bon-vivant country legend Willie Lamothe in the TVA miniseries Willie (Avanti Cine Video).

This year’s Gemeaux drama series finalists were the TVA series 2 Freres (Cirrus Communications/Sphere Media), the SRC series La Vie, la vie (Cirrus/Lux Films), SRC’s Tag and TVA’s Willie.

There were a record 663 finalists in 78 Prix Gemeaux categories this year, but the 1,000 or more ACCT members in the TV section decided to spread out the honors, with 44 shows picking up at least one Gemeaux.

The Gala des Prix Gemeaux, organized by ACCT – Quebec, was broadcast Sept. 30 in two parts on RDI and SRC. The Gemeaux honor excellence in French-language television.

Multiple winners

Multiple Gemeaux winners this year include Un Gars, une fille (Avanti Cine Video), which took top honors as best sitcom; La Vie, la vie, whose wins included best director (Patrice Sauve), best writer (Stephane Bourguignon) and best picture editor (Michel Grou); the internationally acclaimed doc series Vivre en Ville (Macumba International); Willie; and the doc/current affairs series Zone Libre (SRC).

Other multiple program winners are the Tele-Quebec society mag Les Francs-Tireurs (Zone3), the SRC talk show Christiane Charette en direct, winning best cultural magazine and best talk show host (Charette); the VRAK-TV youth sitcom Dans une galaxie pres de chez vous (Zone3) and Fortier.

Program winners

In its seventh and final season, 4 et demi (SRC) won for best teleroman, and naturalist and filmmaker Georges Brassard’s Insectia (Pixcom Productions/Cineteve/La Cinquieme) edged out SRC/CBC’s Le Canada, Une Histoire Populaire for best documentary series.

Manon Barbeau’s L’Armee de l’ombre (National Film Board) was the popular winner for best documentary and the stage play adaptation Don Quichotte (Productions Sogestalt) won for best one-off drama program.

Best children’s show or series (ages three to five) went to Cornemuse (Telefiction).

In the craft categories, Alain Dupras won best cinematography in the film and digital video category for his work on 2 Freres and Sylvain Roy won in the video category for Un Gars, Une Fille.

Special prizes

This year’s special Gemeaux go to the SRC youth website 0340, which won the inaugural best website prize. The Grand Prix de l’Academie, presented for career achievement, went to veteran debonair journalist/producer Pierre Nadeau, a former SRC news anchor and founder of Productions du Sagittaire. The Prix du Multiculturalisme, awarded in association with Canadian Heritage, is shared by the RDI mag Culture Choc, hosted by the talented Gregory Charles, and the SRC drama Tag, produced by Motion International.

A complete list of 2001 Prix Gemeaux winners is available at the ACCT website.

-www.academy.ca