‘I’m good at sex,’ says Leo-nominated director Penelope Buitenhuis.

This area of expertise must have come in handy for the filming of the erotic thriller Dangerous Attraction. Buitenhuis was hired on for the film, which she says is ‘about a woman in lust and in love with two characters who are the same man. The woman is the main character – it’s all about her dealing with her sexuality; she’s a straight-laced girl and she goes on a bender. She’s in love with one character because he’s so good – his passion is slow and not consummated – and she’s in lust with the bad boy – and their passion is consummated numerous times. On screen. It’s the same actor playing both characters and you really can’t tell. The whole accent and body language and character is different.’

Buitenhuis was drawn to the project for both its erotic content and by the idea of one actor convincingly portraying two utterly different personas. ‘I liked the idea of one character playing two roles because I wondered if I could pull it off. It was a challenge. And I like doing sex scenes, and there were quite a few of those. I also wanted to see if I could frighten people.’

She appears to have succeeded, and says the audience for the premiere ‘seemed to be scared in all the right places.

‘It’s very sexy and there’s a fair amount of violence. Part of the reason they hired me is that I’m good at sex. That’s what I do.’

In fact, Buitenhuis spoke about her Leo nomination in the midst of shooting for her next film, Tokyo Girls, about Western women who work as hostesses in Japan. ‘It’s about temptation,’ she says of the film that tracks four Canadian women, some of whom succumb to the seedy side of life in Tokyo. She also seems to have a fondness for rock ‘n’ roll, having just secured funding from B.C. Film ‘to rewrite my script Punk Not Dead. It’s about a punk who’s been preserved in beer for 20 years.’

Of her Leo nomination, Buitenhuis says ‘I’m surprised a little bit, because [the film] is not standard fare, but I’m thrilled.’