WIith roles ranging from a dying Inuit girl to a grieving mother, a heroin addict and a topless boxer, nominees for best supporting actress portray women at all ends of the emotional spectrum.

Marie-Josee Croze, nominated for her role as the sensitive heroin-addict Nathalie in Les Invasions barbares, is no stranger to awards. Although this is her first Genie nom, she’s won numerous awards in the past, including four different best actress prizes for Maelstrom. Curiously, both the Cannes Film Festival and the Prix Jutra penciled her in as lead actress for the role of Nathalie and she claimed both awards, making her the favorite going into the Genie supporting actress race.

In The Event, the second Thom Fitzgerald film represented at this year’s Genies, Olympia Dukakis plays Lila, the supportive mother of the story’s gay murder victim Matt Shapiro (Don McKellar). The 72-year-old Massachusetts native won a 1987 Oscar for her supporting role in Moonstruck. This is her first Genie nomination.

Twenty-one-year-old Annabella Piugattuk is perhaps this year’s sentimental favorite, scoring a nomination on her first-ever film or television project. Piugattuk had no idea that going to a dance in Igloolik, NU would land her the role of Kanaalaq, the tubercular Inuit woman who helps guide pilot Charlie Halliday (Barry Pepper) from the wilds of the Arctic back to civilization in Charles Martin Smith’s The Snow Walker. But that is exactly where casting director Jared Valentine found her. Piugattuk grew up in Iqaluit, and her deep knowledge of Inuit tradition and culture set her apart from all the other candidates.

Even with a storyline layered with incestuous undertones and some shocking nudity and violence, Meredith McGeachie managed to stand out in Guy Bennett’s Punch. Then again, she did play the role of Julie, the lesbian topless boxer, so it’s not hard to see how she succeeded in attracting attention.

In the film, Michael Riley and Sonja Bennett play Sam and Ariel, a father and daughter in a strange relationship. When Sam brings potential girlfriend Mary (Marcia Laskowski) home for dinner, Ariel feels threatened and winds up punching her. After the dinner fiasco, Ariel’s a marked girl, as Julie, Mary’s sister, hunts her down for an eventual showdown.

McGeachie, who was born in Toowoomba, Australia, moved to the Canadian prairies as a young girl. She worked on stage for the earlier part of her career, but later made her debut on the silver screen in a small role in 1999’s Free Fall.

Montreal native Emily Hampshire plays Dot in Calgary director Gary Burns’ A Problem with Fear. In this sci-fi comedy, Global Security Inc. is creating fear in a city to boost sales of a system that alerts people to danger while it sends for help. At the center of all this is Laurie (Paulo Costanzo), a paranoid who’s afraid of almost everything. As he faces mounting fears, Dot, his insecure girlfriend, continues to pressure him into committing to their relationship, which, evidently, Laurie is afraid to do.

Hampshire’s been celebrated for her television performances in the past. In 2001, she shared a Gemini for best ensemble performance for CBC’s Made in Canada.

Playback Picks

* Marie-Josee Croze: PV, MD, LRB, IE

* Annabella Piugattuk: LB

* Meredith McGeachie: SD