Although it may come down to a photo finish, it would seem C.R.A.Z.Y. will beat Aurore in the race to be the first Canadian film to reach $5 million at the box office this year, aided by a six-week head start.

As of Aug. 22, Jean-Marc Vallée’s French-language family drama was about $3,300 shy of the $5-million mark in Quebec, with its English-Canada premiere slated for the Toronto International Film Festival. Over the Aug. 19 weekend, C.R.A.Z.Y. brought in another $122,000 – an 8% increase over the weekend prior – playing on 36 screens, with an average of about $3,400 per screen.

But the period piece Aurore appears to be soon to follow, with a cumulative take of $4.9 million after Aug. 22. This is perhaps a more impressive feat, as Aurore will have reached $5 million in seven weeks, compared to the 13 weeks it took C.R.A.Z.Y. Aurore’s Aug. 19 weekend take was $115,237 on 54 Quebec screens, with a per screen of about $2,134.

In another strong summer for Quebec features, L’Horloge biologique remained the number-one film in Quebec after the Aug. 19 weekend, bringing in $418,000 from 81 screens (about $5,160 per), for a cumulative $2.4 million after three weeks. La dernière incarnation, a fantasy-comedy from Demian Fuica about a man whose life is complicated when an extraterrestrial woman hatches from an egg near his home, opened in 26 Quebec theaters on Aug. 12 with a first-weekend take of $11,704. It had brought in a cumulative total of $13,479 by Aug. 22, while playing on nine screens.

The opening weekend box-office returns for John Greyson’s gay-themed period drama Proteus were not available at press time from distributor Domino Film. The film opened in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver over the Aug. 19 weekend.

The U.S. documentary The Aristocrats has its Toronto-based distributor, ThinkFilm, laughing all the way to the bank. The film, about the classic vaudeville ‘Aristocrats’ joke, had taken in a cumulative US$2.75 million at the North American box office as of Aug. 22. Think doubled its number of screens for the Aug. 19 weekend, as word of filthy mouth spread quickly, and the film brought in $700,500 in 172 theaters for an impressive per-screen average of roughly $4,000. The Aristocrats brought in about $250,000 in its Aug. 2 first weekend on four screens in New York and L.A. Think is expanding the film’s reach even further across Canada come Aug. 26, shipping it to Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Winnipeg, Victoria and Ottawa.

Opening in Toronto on Aug. 26 was Mark A. Lewis’ dark comedy Ill Fated, starring Peter Outerbridge and Nicki Clyne (Zolar). The B.C. film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and has been racking up international fest awards. Bernard Émond’s drama La Neuvaine, which won three awards at the recent Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, debuted in Quebec on Aug. 26 through distributor K-Films Amérique. Like C.R.A.Z.Y. and L’Horloge, it will receive its English Canada premiere at TIFF.