The third time proved a charm for Montreal filmmaker Denys Arcand, as his internationally acclaimed drama The Barbarian Invasions won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film at the annual Oscar ceremony at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre, Feb. 29.

Previous Arcand features The Decline of the American Empire (1986), to which Invasions is a sequel of sorts, and Jesus of Montreal (1989) were also nominated in the foreign-language category but came away empty-handed.

Arcand went up to the podium accompanied by his producer and life partner, Denise Robert, and producer Daniel Louis, both of Montreal’s Cinemaginaire. Robert did most of the talking, thanking coproducer Fabienne Vonier, of France’s Pyramide Productions, as well as the Canadian and French governments for their support. A nod was also given to Victor Loewy, CEO of Alliance Atlantis’ Motion Picture Distribution Group. AA is the film’s domestic distrib through divisions Vivafilm in Quebec and Odeon in English Canada.

Robert also singled out Harvey Weinstein, head of U.S. distributor Miramax Films, which showed its legendary promotional prowess in helping secure a win for the film, for which it paid an estimated $2.1 million at Cannes. ‘We’d really like to share this with you and share it with the actors and the technicians who worked so well on this film,’ Robert said.

‘People asked me what were my chances of winning an Oscar. I said ‘a snowball’s chance in hell,” Arcand said afterward. ‘If you find yourself in hell, beware of snowballs.’

Arcand and Robert remained in California to vacation with their daughter and recuperate after having followed their film around the world for 10 months. Their efforts paid off: the film took prizes at Cannes, Toronto, Bangkok, France’s Cesars, the European Film Awards and the hometown Jutra Awards.

Invasions tells the story of Remy (Remy Girard), a Montreal professor dying of cancer, who reconciles with his estranged son Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) and is joined by his ex-wife, ex-lovers and best friends as he prepares for the end. Most of the characters were introduced in Decline.

In claiming the top prize, Invasions beat out contenders Evil (Sweden), The Twilight Samurai (Japan), Twin Sisters (Netherlands) and Zelary (Czech Republic). It is the first time a Canadian film has won the best foreign-language Oscar. Invasions was also up in the best original screenplay category, which it lost to favorite Lost in Translation, written by Sofia Coppola.

Invasions was playing on 22 screens across Canada the week of Feb. 27. Alliance Atlantis is bumping that up to 60 for the week of March 12, using all of its 35 French prints and 25 English subtitled prints. The film is reopening in most key Canadian markets and is being rereleased in Quebec, where it originally opened on May 9, 2003. Even before the print increase, Invasions enjoyed a 60% increase in ticket sales the week of March 5.

At press time, the film’s total Canadian box office stood at $6.9 million.

‘We’re in uncharted waters,’ says Mark Slone, Odeon VP of marketing and publicity. ‘We don’t have our own Canadian Oscar that often, so we’ll see exactly what it means, but I’m encouraged by the bump that we got the week following the awards.’

As of February 27, the film was playing on 59 American screens, and at most recent count it had taken in US $2.2 million at the U.S. box office. ‘Since the nomination we’ve been expanding it, and we feel that the Oscar will drive people to the theaters,’ says Miramax spokesman Paul Pflug. At press time there was no word on the exact number of American engagements lined up post-Oscar.

In other Canuck Oscar news, Toronto-born composer Howard Shore took home two statuettes for his music for the blockbuster The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, released domestically through Alliance Atlantis. He won for original score as well as original song, which he shared with cowriters Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox. They are the first Oscars for Shore, whose big break in features came on the David Cronenberg films The Brood, Scanners and Videodrome.

Sylvain Chomet’s animated The Triplets of Belleville, a Canada/ France/Belgium copro, lost out in the original song category as well as for best animated feature, which went to favorite Finding Nemo from Walt Disney Pictures. Canadian animator Chris Hinton’s Nibbles lost out to Australia’s Harvey Krumpet for best animated short.

-www.oscars.org