MONTREAL — Both Denys Arcand’s latest and the box-office smash Les 3 p’tits cochons were largely ignored at the 10th annual Prix Jutra, where the auteur flick Continental, un film sans fusil was the star of the night on Sunday, picking up four awards, including best film, directing and screenplay for first-time helmer 31-year old Stéphane Lafleur.

Lafleur was visibly moved by the win in a category that included veteran directors Fernand Dansereau, Bernard Émond and Arcand. ‘I’m honored to even be nominated. I feel like a little kid,’ he said. ‘Thanks to everyone who had confidence in this film.’

Réal Bossé (Louis) also picked up an award for his supporting role as a traveling salesman in Continental, a funny and moving meditation on social isolation. Its wins mark the second straight Jutra sweep for producers Kim McGraw and Luc Déry of Montreal based micro_scope. Last year their auteur flick Congorama received five awards, including best picture.

‘It’s a bit overwhelming receiving the best picture award two years in a row,’ McGraw told the audience of 755 gathered in a Radio-Canada studio/theater for the glitzy ceremony, which was broadcast live on SRC.

Déry used the platform to blast the Conservative government’s Bill C-10, which last week sparked widespread controversy in Canada’s artist community. ‘That bill is an abomination. It limits free expression. We have to stop it,’ Déry said.

Roy Dupuis took home a Jutra for his starring role as Lt.-General Roméo Dallaire in Shake Hands with the Devil. He later likened the role to a mission. ‘I’ve never worked a project like this before. It was incredible to work with [Dallaire], who had been through so much and continued. It was a role that was very much alive for me,’ he told Playback Daily.

Theater actress and popular soap star Guylaine Tremblay won for her starring role in Contre toute espérance as a woman whose life spirals after her husband falls ill and she loses her union job as a telephone operator. ‘This is a film about all those women who don’t ever make headlines. These women work hard every day without being recognized,’ she said.

François Girard’s period piece Silk picked up four awards: cinematography for Alan Dostie; artistic direction for François Séguin; costumes for Carlo Poggioli and Kazuko Kurosawa; and sound for the team of Claude La Haye, Claude Beaugrand, Hans Peter Strobl, Bernard Gariepy Strobl and Olivier Calvert.

Richard Desjardins won his second best documentary award for Le peuple invisible, a hard-hitting look at the state of Quebec’s Algonquin people.

The Prix Jutra-Hommage went to Jean-Claude Labrecque — the cinematographer on Contre toute espérance — recognizing his decades of documentary making, including titles La visite du général de Gaulle au Québec (1967), and more recently, A l’hauteur d’homme, which followed then-premier Bernard Landry on the 2003 election trail.

Although Arcand’s bleak look at modern Quebec society L’âge des ténèbres was up for six nominations, it picked up only one award — best makeup for Diane Simard.