MONTREAL — The Quebec film leading the race for the upcoming Genies, Benoît Pilon’s Ce qu’il faut pour vivre (The Necessities of Life) picked up the top prizes at the Prix Jutra on Sunday night, including best picture, best screenplay and best actor for Natar Ungalaaq.

And for the first time in the 11-year history of the Quebec film awards, the best director prize went to a woman, Lyne Charlebois, for helming Borderline. The story of a troubled, sexually promiscuous young writer also picked up best actress for Isabelle Blais, best supporting actress for Angele Coutu and editing for Yvann Thibaudeau.

Ce qu’il faut pour vivre producer Bernadette Payeur accepted the best screenplay prize on behalf of an absent Bernard Émond, who worked in the Far North for years before becoming a filmmaker. Payeur read a moving thank you note the screenwriter composed to the Inuit people: ‘I hope they see this film as an act of gratitude. Those years in the north haunt me. Those extremes of the human condition still resonate in my work.’ The film is also up for eight Genies.

The surrealist fable Babine picked up five prizes in mainly technical categories, including for best music (Normand Corbeil, Serge Fiori), best artistic direction (Nicolas Lepage), best sound (Dominique Chartrand, Olivier Calvert, Louis Gignac, Gavin Fernandes), best costumes (Carmen Alie) and best makeup (Kathryn Casault).

But the film that most critics here believe was one of the best of the year, Yves Christian Fournier’s Tout est parfait, received only one prize, best supporting actor for Normand D’Amour. The film had four nominations but was ignored in the best picture category, which drew the ire of many journalists who questioned the prize’s selection process.

Considering the growing hostility of the Quebec arts community towards the government of Stephen Harper, most awards recipients were surprisingly apolitical last night, with the exception of documentary filmmaker Patricio Henriquez, who picked up an award for his Sous la cagoule, un voyage au bout de la torture.

‘I feel like there is a war going on against Quebec culture right now,’ Henriquez told the audience. ‘We are paying for the fact that Quebec didn’t vote for the Conservatives in the last election,’ he later told Playback Daily.

Like a number of other commentators, Henriquez believes that the recent cutbacks at Radio-Canada are a sign that the Conservative government has essentially given up on winning over Quebec voters. Of the 800 jobs that will be eliminated across the country, 336 are in CBC’s French-language operations. Most job losses will occur in Montreal, a fact which will hit the television community here hard.

Denis Villeneuve’s award-winning Next Floor won for best short. Léa Pool’s Maman est chez le coiffeur was named the film that had the most success outside of Quebec, and the Billet d’Or Jutra, for the film that sold the most tickets, went to Cruising Bar 2.

Polytechnique star Karine Vanesse hosted this year’s ceremony, which took place at Radio-Canada before an audience of over 700.