Third place goes to Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar with nine (again including picture, director and screenplay; it previously won best Canadian film at TIFF 2011), followed by Steven Silver’s The Bang Bang Club with seven (it’s really a South African film with some Canadian financing), Ken Scott’s Quebec comedy Starbuck with six and Larysa Kondracki’s The Whistleblower with five (another triple picture/director/screenplay nominee). The Whistleblower was a German production filmed in Romania with a British star – Rachel Weisz – some Canadian financing and a Toronto-born director.

Best picture nominees are A Dangerous Method, Café de flore, Monsieur Lazhar, Starbuck and The Whistleblower; best director: David Cronenberg for A Dangerous Method, Steven Silver for The Bang Bang Club, Philippe Falardeau for Monsieur Lazhar and Larysa Kondracki for The Whistleblower; best actress: Catherine de Léan (Nuit #1), Pascale Montpetit (The Girl in the White Coat), Vanessa Paradis (Café de flore), Rachel Weisz (The Whistleblower) and Michelle Williams (Take this Waltz); and best actor: Fellag (Monsieur Lazhar), Garret Dillahunt (Oliver Sherman), Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method), Patrick Huard (Starbuck) and Scott Speedman (Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster).

The most popular 2011 English-Canadian movie with at the film-going public, Jason Eisener’s celebration of the splatter genre, Hobo with a Shotgun, was completely shut out, even in the technical categories, and how did the Academy overlook Keira Knightley for her brave performance in A Dangerous Method?

The 2012 Genies will be broadcast on Thursday, March 8 at 8 p.m. on CBC-TV.