Montreal: The Avanti Cine Video miniseries Cher Olivier and the Productions Tele-Action miniseries Les Orphelins de Duplessis led all other 1997 ACCT-Quebec Prix Gemeaux finalists with 14 and 12 nominations respectively.

The 12th annual Prix Gemeaux gala will be broadcast live Oct. 5 in two parts starting at 3 p.m. on Reseau de l’Information and at 7:30 p.m. on Radio-Canada.

Cher Olivier dramatizes the tumultuous life and times of Quebec music hall legend and tv comic Olivier Guimond. Les Orphelins is a dramatic story of young boys mistreated in a Quebec orphanage at the time of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis.

Other multiple program nominees this year include the Modus tv/Neofilms historical drama Ces Enfants d’ailleurs, the Cite-Amerique romance saga Marguerite Volant, the Radio-Canada teleroman Sous un ciel variable, the Avanti sitcom and ratings hit La Petite Vie, the Productions Prisma medical drama Urgence ii, the l’Equipe Spectra comedy special Pas de quartier pour Monsieur Caron and the Teleferic/ Verseau International youth science series Science-Friction.

Cinar Films and Cine-Groupe will slug it out for best animation series, each with two nominations: Arthur and Le monde irresistible de Richard Scarry iv for Cinar, and Quasimodo and Spirou for Cine-Groupe.

Drama series nominees are Telefiction’s 10-07 l’Affaire Kafka, Ces Enfants d’ailleurs, Cher Olivier, Les Orphelins and Marguerite Volant.

Best documentary d’auteur or point-of-view documentary nominees this year are Nicole Giguere’s Aller simple pour Sirius (Verseau), Alain d’Aix’s Anatomie de Tarzan (Inform-Action), Daniele Lacourse and Yvan Patry’s Chronique d’un genocide announce (Alter-Cine/ nfb), Andre Gladu’s La Conquete du Grand Ecran (Nanouk Films/ nfb) and Michel Brault’s Ozias LeducŠcomme l’espace et le temps (Films Franc Sud).

Nominees for best photography (film) all categories are: Eric Cayla (Cher Olivier), Harold Arsenault (Le Dauphin ­ Ne pour la mer), Charles Lavack (Le Dernier des Franco-Ontariens), Pierre Mignot (Les Orphelins) and Pierre Gill (Marguerite Volant).

Some 70% of this year’s nominations went to independent producers. Uniprix and Ford du Canada are the Gemeaux’s principal sponsors.