The Quebec box-office hit C.R.A.Z.Y. leads the pack with a dozen nominations and will face off against Water, with nine, and It’s All Gone Pete Tong, with eight, in categories including best picture and best director at the 2006 Genie Awards.

Seven-time nominee Familia and Saint Ralph round out the best film crop.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television revealed the nominations on Jan. 25 at CHUM headquarters in Toronto – adding that the awards gala will not be aired in its entirety. CHUM will air parts of the gala during a live one-hour special from the Genies after-party later the same night.

C.R.A.Z.Y. helmer Jean-Marc Vallée, Water’s Deepa Mehta and Pete Tong helmer Michael Dowse will go up against L’Audition’s star and first-time helmer Luc Picard and Familia’s Louise Archambault – another rookie – in the best director category. All five are also up for best original screenplay, along with C.R.A.Z.Y. cowriter François Boulay.

Best adapted script nods went to David Christensen for Six Figures, Luc Dionne for Aurore, Nathalie Petrowski for Maman Last Call, Diane Cailhier for Le Survenant and Atom Egoyan for Where the Truth Lies. Truth received five nominations, including best editing and art direction, but missed best picture – a first for an Egoyan feature in more than 10 years.

C.R.A.Z.Y., about a sexually confused teenager and his relationship with his family, was Canada’s submission for best foreighn-language feature Oscar. Although it came up short, it netted Genie noms for Paul Jutras’ editing, Pierre Mignot’s cinematography, and two in the best actor heat. Michael Côté and rising talent Marc-André Grondin are up against L’Audition’s Picard, Pete Tong’s Paul Kaye and Saint Ralph’s Adam Butcher in the category.

Familia’s Macha Grenon and Sylvie Moreau will vie for the best actress prize against Seema Biswas for Water, Arsinée Khanjian for Sabah – A Love Story, and Gina Chiarelli for Pete McCormack’s drama See Grace Fly.

Toronto director David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence did not qualify for the nominations. The film shot in Canada for New Line Cinema in the U.S.

‘A History of Violence does not qualify for certification under the tax-credit system, and does not qualify for certification under the broadcast system, and can’t get a CRTC number,’ says Academy chair Paul Gratton. ‘If we started being more subjective about the nominations, the whole debate every year would be where do you draw the line? You’d end up with a system where anything a Canadian does anywhere counts as Canadian. We could have Jim Carrey movies up for best picture.’

French-Canadian films have dominated the Genies for the last two years. Last year, Les Triplettes de Belleville took best film, with Ma vie en cinémascope and Mémoires affectives splitting several other major awards. In 2004, Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions barbares took six awards, including best picture, director, original screenplay and actor.

Broadcaster CHUM will give the Genies a new treatment this year. The awards presentation will be taped in Toronto but aired only in clips on a live one-hour special later that night, intercut with interviews from the post-gala cocktail party. Hosted by Star! Daily’s Larysa Harapyn, Dina Pugliese, Husein Madhavji and Danielle McGimsie, the special will run down the nominees of a category, throwing to a clip of each winner.

This is the first time in the 26 years of the Genies that the show has been handled this way. CHUM hopes to improve on the 314,000 viewers that tuned in last year, which was already a significant jump from 157,000 in 2004, when it took over for CBC.

‘It condenses two-and-a-half hours of award ceremony into one hour, and hopefully a really fast-paced and entertaining show,’ says Marci Martin, CHUM’s VP of production.

Martin says she spoke with Academy president Maria Topalovich after last year’s Genies, which was a televised sit-down dinner affair. Martin suggested something that would be ‘more relevant’ to the younger CHUM audience, and Topalovich liked the schmooze concept.

‘It’s a TV show we’re producing, not an awards presentation,’ says Martin. ‘You’ll get the highlights, so it will feel like a condensed award show, without the stuff you don’t really want to see.’

The Genies special will air at 9 p.m. on March 13 – eight days after the 78th Academy Awards – immediately after the un-televised awards ceremony is scheduled to conclude. It will air on CHUM’s Citytv stations across Canada, Star!, Bravo! and the French-language MusiMax channels, and is produced by Dan Hughes and directed by Bob Haller, who are responsible for, among other things, City’s New Year’s Eve specials.

CHUM will promote the show internally through its channels, and has produced a 30-second promotional trailer that will hit movie theaters across the country on Feb. 10.

www.genieawards.ca