Observers may have a hard time differentiating between this year’s Genie Awards and the Prix Jutra, the Quebec film awards that were handed out Feb. 20 in Montreal.

While it’s nothing new for Quebec cinema to have a strong showing at the Genies – Les Invasions barbares pretty well swept them last year – their dominance this year is particularly pronounced, and the presence of English-language nominees seems akin to tokenism.

The six most-nominated films are all out of Quebec, and all are in French with the exception of Head in the Clouds, a Remstar Productions copro with the U.K. and Spain. French films are dominant in each of the actress (four out of five noms), actor (three out of five) and director (three out of five) categories. All of this can’t be good news for broadcaster CHUM Television, which, for the second straight year, will air the awards live from the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (see story, p. 37).

It is always challenging to generate public interest in Canadian cinema, but harder still when a couple of the best picture nominees, Ma vie en cinémascope and Mémoires affectives (the Jutra winner for best picture, actor and director), have not even played in English Canada, where most of the Genies’ target audience resides. Sylvain Chomet’s animated copro Les Triplettes de Belleville is technically a French-language film, but did play in English Canada and is known to mainstream audiences for its 2004 Oscar nomination for best animated film.

The remaining two contestants for the top film prize are both English-Canadian (and both from distrib ThinkFilm), but exist on opposite ends of the budget chain. The presence of the $2.5-million Love, Sex and Eating the Bones in the prize mix was met with a smile from many in the industry. The saucy romantic comedy has taken in only $150,000 at the box office, but it signals the arrival of a fresh new talent in Toronto writer/director David ‘Sudz’ Sutherland.

Meanwhile, producer Robert Lantos’ latest, Being Julia, a saucy US$18-million period comedy coproduced with the U.K. and Hungary and shot entirely overseas, has done well at the box office (US$7.6 million internationally), thanks to Annette Bening’s Bette Davis-like performance, which garnered a Golden Globe and has her up for an Oscar. Bening will not be stopping by to collect any Genie hardware and add some Hollywood glamor to the proceedings, however. Because the film is a minority copro with a foreign director (Hungarian Istvan Szabo), foreign performers including the American Bening do not qualify for Genie consideration (see story, p. 30).

It is often argued that French-language features outperform their English-language counterparts at the box office chiefly because of the advantage of a culturally distinct market. (The market share for French-Canadian films in 2004 was 21%, compared to 1.6% for English-Canadian films.) But perhaps, on Genie’s silver anniversary, stakeholders should reevaluate that reasoning. When panels of Genie jurists – most of whom are presumably English-Canadian – sit down to evaluate the year’s releases based solely on quality, the French films come out clearly on top.

At the same time, one shouldn’t underestimate an English-Canadian film’s chances of winning the best pic prize this year. Genie voters have long taken a shine to Robert Lantos’ output – his name already appears on the top film prizes for Black Robe, Sunshine and Ararat – and Being Julia might very well be next.

The Genie Awards will air nationwide on March 21 on Citytv Toronto and Vancouver, Bravo!, Star!, Alberta Access, MusiMax and ASN. A full list of nominees is available on the awards website.

-www.genieawards.ca