'Persistent' Polley walks away with top awards
Canadian's directorial debut commands major prizes —
best picture and director, best actor and actress

GAYLE MACDONALD
GlobeandMail.com
March 4, 2008

Sarah Polley's moving film about Alzheimer's disease, "Away From Her", and David Cronenberg's Russian mob drama "Eastern Promises" were the big winners at Monday night's 28th annual Genie Awards, each scooping seven prizes.

But Ms. Polley's movie – her feature-film directorial debut – won most of the major categories, including best motion picture, best director, best actress (Julie Christie), best actor (Gordon Pinsent), best supporting actress (Kristen Thomson), and best adapted screenplay (for Ms. Polley herself, who based the film on a short story by Alice Munroe).

In a satellite feed, Oscar-nominated actress Julie Christie thanked Ms. Polley for being the most tenacious director she's ever worked with. “I would like to give an award to Canada for producing Sarah Polley,” the veteran actress said. “Not only is she a wonderful actor, a wonderful director, and a wonderful screenplay writer, she is also the most persistent person I have ever met. And I am so grateful to her. That she persisted in persuading me to make Away From Her one of the happiest, if not happiest, film experiences of my life.”

After getting his award, Mr. Pinsent said: “It would take me another lifetime to thank Sarah, and to just tell her how I feel about this entire thing.” Then he quipped: “Julie also left me with a gift of some sort. We had this way too short canoodling love story, and before leaving the bed, she'd tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Well done, Gordon.' Well, that's on the résumé.”


Director Sarah Polley and actor Gordon Pinsent show off their awards
at the Genie awards in Toronto.
(Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail)

The evening was a platform to celebrate the best in Canadian film, but also to condemn the federal government, which plans to begin withholding tax credits for film and TV projects it deems to be “offensive” to the public good.

Genie host Sandra Oh, the Nepean, Ont.-born actress who stars as the aggressive Dr. Christina Yang on ABC's hit Grey's Anatomy, wasted no time in taking a jab at the proposed amendment to the Income Tax Act.

“I feel I can't go on without bringing up Bill C-10. [If passed], a very small group of government bureaucrats [will have the] the power to censor Canadian film and television artists by threatening to take away vital government funding. So in other words, censorship has had a little work done, and is trying to make a comeback. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound Canadian to me.”

Accepting the Genie for best original screenplay, Eastern Promises' executive producer Robert Lantos also slammed the government, saying “this screenplay is chock full of powerful, frank, honest, original scenes. Just the kind that, if some barbarians have their way, are no longer going to be permissible in Canadian cinema.”

Heading into the evening, Eastern Promises and Roger Spottiswoode's Shake Hands With the Devil – which stars Quebec's Roy Dupuis as General Roméo Dallaire, who struggled to bring international attention to the genocide in Rwanda – led the Genie race, with a dozen nominations each.

Shake Hands With the Devil ended up with a disappointing one Genie for best original song.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television handed Eastern Promises seven Genies in categories including best original screenplay, performance by an actor in a supporting role (Armin Mueller-Stahl), original score (Howard Shore), editing (Ronald Sanders) and cinematography (Peter Suschitzky).

The quirky ghoul comedy Fido took home best art direction. Radiant City, which explores the madness of suburban sprawl, won best documentary. The Academy Award-nominated Madame Tutli-Putli claimed the statuette for best animated short. François Girard's period drama and love story "Silk" won for costume design. The prize for live-action short drama went to Apres Tout.

Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments – about a troubled young woman played by Canadian star Ellen Page – was also shut out of the prize category Monday night. It went in with six nominations.

Rounding out the best picture nominees were L'Age des tenebres, (about the fantasy life of a civil servant), Continental, un film sans fusil (the story of the aftermath of a man's disappearance into the forest), Eastern Promises and Shake Hands With The Devil.

Away From Her also received the Claude Jutra Award Monday night, which recognizes outstanding achievement by a first-time feature film director.

In her speech, Ms. Polley thanked director Atom Egoyan for his support and inspiration. She then added that her film “would never have been made without public support through organizations like Telefilm Canada and the Ontario Media Development Corp.

“I feel extremely lucky to have had the rare experience, as a first-time filmmaker, of being able to find my own voice without constant pandering to a profit motive or to committees. I think that is what is special about making a film with public money. And I'm very grateful for it. We can never, ever stop fighting for it.”

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