31st Annual Genie Awards for Canadian film - winners

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television held their 31st Annual Genie Awards ceremony tonight at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. The Genie Awards are given to the best of the year in Canadian cinema. The show was hosted by Montreal-born William Shatner.

The night was largely dominated by Barney's Version and Incendies with Incendies coming out ahead. It won eight awards including Best Picture and Best Director and Adapted Screenplay for Denis Villeneuve. It also won for Best Actress (Lubna Azabal), Cinematography, Editing, Sound and Sound Editing. The Oscar-nominated Incendies is a worthy winner and was my top film of 2010, Canadian or otherwise.

Barney's Version was not far behind with seven wins. It had led with eleven nominations to ten for Incendies. It won three acting awards for Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman and Minnie Driver. It also took Art Direction, Makeup, Costume Design and Music.

The other multiple winner tonight was The Trotsky which won for Best Original Screenplay (Jacob Tierney) and Original Song ("Already Gone"). Lead actor Jay Baruchel also picked up an audience-voted User's Choice Award.

The winner of Best Documentary was the very deserving Last Train Home by Lixin Fan.

All of the above major winners are Montreal-based films. Although Incendies and Last Train Home are set overseas, their filmmakers have Montreal as their home base.

The short film winners were Lisa Jackson's Savage and Theodore Ushev's Lipsett Diaries.
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Complete list of winners for the 31st Genie Awards

Best Motion Picture
Incendies - Luc Déry, Kim McCraw

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Paul Giamatti - Barney's Version

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Dustin Hoffman - Barney's Version

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Lubna Azabal - Incendies

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Minnie Driver - Barney's Version

Achievement in Direction
Denis Villeneuve - Incendies

Adapted Screenplay
Denis Villeneuve - Incendies

Original Screenplay
Jacob Tierney - The Trotsky

Best Documentary
Last Train Home - Lixin Fan, Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross

Achievement in Art Direction
Claude Paré, Elise de Blois - Barney's Version

Achievement in Cinematography
André Turpin - Incendies

Achievement in Costume Design
Nicoletta Massone - Barney's Version

Achievement in Editing
Monique Dartonne - Incendies

Achievement in Make-up
Adrien Morot, Micheline Trépanier - Barney's Version

Achievement in Music - Original Score
Pasquale Catalano - Barney's Version

Achievement in Music - Original Song
Mary Milne - The Trotsky - "Already Gone"

Achievement in Overall Sound
Jean Umansky, Jean-Pierre Laforce - Incendies

Achievement in Sound Editing
Sylvain Bellemare, Simon Meilleur, Claire Pochon - Incendies

Best Live Action Short Drama
Savage - Lisa Jackson, Lauren Grant, Lori Lozinski

Best Animated Short
Lipsett Diaries - Theodore Ushev, Marc Bertrand

User's Choice Award
Jay Baruchel

Claude Jutra Award
Jephté Bastien - Sortie 67
Honourable mention: Peter Stebbings - Defendor

Golden Reel Award
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Producers: Don Carmody, Jeremy Bolt, Robert Kulzer,
Distributor: Alliance Films
Total Canadian box office in 2010 – $7,026,559