Atom Egoyan’s Chloe leads the pack with five nominations in categories including best director and best feature film as the Directors Guild of Canada on Wednesday unveiled its 2010 finalists.

Egoyan will be up against fellow directors Reginald Harkema for Leslie, My Name is Evil, Penelope Buitenhuis for her fourth feature A Wake, and TV veteran George Milhalka for Faith, Fraud & Minimum Wage, when the awards are handed out in Toronto on Sept. 25.

The artsy thriller with an all star cast including Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried also picked up nods for production design, picture editing and sound editing. Chloe — which earned over $1-million at the Canuck box office earlier this year for E1 Entertainment – will compete against Ruba Nadda’s Cairo Time, Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky, and John N. Smith’s romantic drama Love & Savagery in the team feature film category.

On the TV series front, it’s the battle of the cop shows with CTV’s Flashpoint and The Bridge each securing four nominations including direction for Holly Dale and Helen Shaver, respectively. They will compete against Adrienne Mitchell for Durham County and Robert C. Cooper for Stargate Universe. Flashpoint and Bridge are also pitted against each other in the team television series – drama category.

In the best TV movie or miniseries director category, Peter Svatek is recognized for his work on Everything She Ever Wanted, Paolo Barzman for The Phantom, Norma Bailey for Too Late to Say Goodbye, and Jeff Woolnough for Keep Your Head Up Kid: The Don Cherry Story. (Cherry garnered four DGC nominations in all).

The DGC will also present team awards for family-themed TV series with Degrassi: The Next Generation competing against episodes of Heartland, How to Be Indie, and Overruled! Meanwhile, the teams behind Death Comes to Town, G-Spot, Less Than Kind, and Little Mosque on the Prairie will vie for the best television series – comedy prize.

In the documentary category the finalists are: Ballet High, The Experimental Eskimos, Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, and Love Letters.

The DGC will also recognize veteran helmer Sidney Furie with its lifetime achievement award, while Pinewood Toronto Studios’ boss Paul Bronfman and Don McCutcheon will receive the life member and distinguished service awards respectively.

The 2010 DGC Awards will be hosted by Dave Foley.