Sarah Polley's "Away from Her" Wins 7 Genies; Ties with David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" for Most Awards

Sarah Polley was the recipient of three Genie Awards for her film Away From Her, which won a total of seven Genies, the Canadian equivalent of the Oscar. David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises also won seven Genies, mostly in the technical categories. Polley, who earlier had been named the recipient of the Claude Jutra Award as the outstanding director of a first film, won a Genie for Best Adapted Screenplay and beat Cronenberg for the Best Director award.

The awards ceremony, which was held on March 3, 2008 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center with actress Sandra Oh as master of ceremonies, was not without controversy. Cando-American director Jason Reitman had issued a statement criticizing the fact that his film Juno , which featured Canadian actors and was shot by a Canadian crew in Canada, did not qualify for Genie nominations. (The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television said that Juno, which was financed by an American film studio, was not submitted for Genie Award consideration.) And a bill that would put restrictions on the funding of Canadian film and TV was denounced by Oh and Genie Award presenters and winners.

Juno star Ellen Page, Oscar-nominated for her role in Reitman's film, was nominated as Best Actress for her lead in The Tracey Fragments, a film that wound up with six Genie nominations, including best director but no awards. Page lost out to Julie Christie, who was part of the Away From Her sweep of the major awards. In addition to Polley's three personal gongs, Away From Her won the Genie for best picture, Best Actor (Gordon Pinsent), Best Actress (Julie Christie) and Best Supporting Actress (Kristen Thomson). Both Polley and Christie had been nominated for Oscars by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

Accepting the Best Director Genie, Sarah Polley said, "The ridiculousness of me winning in this category is not lost on me." She then saluted fellow directing nominees Cronenberg, Denys Arcand, Roger Spottiswoode and Bruce McDonald.

The legendary David Cronenberg has been nominated 15 times for Genie Awards and has won eight, including five Best Director Genies, most recently in 2003 for Spider. (Cronenberg also was the recipient of a Golden Reel Award for Crash, which is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the movie that performed best at the best box office in Canada that year. Les 3 p'tits cochons was this year's Golden Reel winner.) Six-time Genie winner Denys Arcand has won three directing awards, for Le Déclin de l'empire américain, Jésus de Montréal, and Les Invasions barbares, the latter of which won the Oscar as Best Foreign Film in 2004. He also won a Canadian Film Award, a forerunner of the Genies, for his documentary Samuel de Champlain: Québec 1603. (Arcand's L'Âge des ténèbres and Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments will be part of an annual showcase highlighting Canadian film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.)

In addition to thanking eight-time Genie-winner Atom Egoyan, who served as executive producer of Away From Her and is her artistic mentor, Sarah Polley paid tribute to her husband, Genie Award-winning editor David Wharnsby, who was nominated for Best Editing, when she accepted her Best Adapted screenplay Genie. Polley, who adapted the short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Canadian writer Alice Munro, was drawn to the story about an aged couple soon after marrying Wharnsby in 2003 as it gave her perspective on her lifetime commitment to her new mate.

"I began writing this screenplay the day after my husband, David Wharnsby, told me not to give up," Polley told the audience in Toronto. She later said, "I made this film with him, I made it because of him and I made it for him."

Both Sarah Polley and David Wharnsby are prior Genie winners. Polley won a 2004 Best Actress Award for My Life Without Me and the 2003 Genie for Best Live Action Short Drama for I Shout Love. Wharnsby also won a Genie in 2004 for editing Guy Madden's The Saddest Music in the World.

David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises also won seven trophies: Best Supporting Actor (Armin Mueller-Stahl), Best Original Screenplay (Steve Knight), Best Editing (Ronald Sanders), Best Cinematography (Peter Suschitzky), Best Score (Howard Shore), and Genies for Best Overall Sound and Best Sound Editing. Makeup artist Stéphan Dupuis was presented with a special award in recognition of his achievement in makeup design for Eastern Promises.

Aside from the Juno controversy, host Sandra Oh and Genie Award presenters and winners addressed Bill C-10, proposed amendments to the Canadian tax code that would enable the federal government to deny tax credits for films that are offensive or that are not in the public interest. The bill, which already has been passed by the House of Commons and is before the Canadian Senate, would give the federal Heritage Department the power to veto tax breaks for films and TV shows that run afoul of the federal government, even if the projects had been approved by the Canadian Television Fund and Telefilm. The determination of what is offensive or not in the public interest would be made by the federal Heritage and Justice Departments.

The bill has been denounced as censorship by many Canadians, including David Cronenberg, who told CBC News, "It sounds like something they do in Beijing."

Canadian film, television and radio programs with Canadian content are heavily subsidized by the federal government, as the competition from American product is so fierce, it drowns out local voices. Most of the film production capacity in Canada is dedicated to producing films and television shows for the American market, and without government subsidies, non-Quebec based Canadian film, i.e., anglophone films with Canadian themes and content, might disappear. The vast majority of Canadians live near the Canada-US border and easily pick up American TV and radio broadcasts; outside of Quebec, where language is a barrier to US penetration of the local market, American films utterly dominate the Canadian box office, which is folded into the US box office as "North America" and considered part of the domestic box office take by the US film industry.

The bill, intended to curb the presentation of sex and violence on the public dole, was introduced by the previous Liberal government.

Oh told the audience that, "Censorship has had a little work done and is trying to make a comeback." The Grey's Anatomy star, who was born in Nepean, Ontario, said, "I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound Canadian to me. Let's stop it."

Sarah Polley, who described Bill C-10 as "terrifying," denounced it, saying that the proposed law "flies in the face of what we should be looking toward in a civilized nation."

Speaking to the press after the ceremony, Polley opined, "Sex and violence are part of the world we live in. It's the job of an artist to talk about the world we live in."

Sarah Polley gave up a lucrative career in films in the United States to stay in Canada and make Canadian themes. She and others like her feel betrayed by the Canadian government's failure to fully support their endeavors to preserve a distinct Canadian cultural identity.

Sources:

Canadian Broacasting Corp., "Polley's Away From Her triumphs at Genie Awards; Polley film ties with Cronenberg mafia tale with 7 trophies each"

Canadian Broacasting Corp., "Artists call Tory plan to vet films 'censorship'"