Incendies leads race for Jutra Awards

Denis Villeneuve's Oscar-nominated Incendies leads the race for this year's Jutra Awards, the Quebec film awards, with 10 nominations.

The drama about Quebec twins thrown into the turmoil of Middle Eastern politics after they try to carry out their mother's last wishes earned a best picture nomination and nods for best direction and best screenwriter for Villeneuve.

Both female stars Lubna Azabal and Mlissa Dsormeaux-Poulin have nominations for thebest actress Jutra.

The film, based on a play by Montreal's Wajdi Mouawad, is also a top contender for the Genie Awards, the English Canadian filmawards as well as a contender for foreign-language film Oscar.

Genie frontrunner Barney's Version has four nominations at the Jutras, including best screenplay for Michael Konyves's adaptation of the Mordecai Richler novel.

The other nominees for best film include Les Signes Vitaux, Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats), Curling and 10.

La Cit, a story of a doctor working at the front in 1890s Africa, has five nominations, including best director for Kim Nguyen, as well as best art direction, cinematography, costumes and original score.

Cabotins, about a comedian on a last-ditch comeback, and Les sept jours du talion, about a man obsessed with catching the guy who murdered his daughter, each snared five nominations. Dorothe Berryman is nominated as best supporting actress for Cabotins, while Martin Dubreuil is nominated as best supporting actor for his role as a murderer in Les sept jours du talion.

The best director nods also went to Daniel (Podz) Grou, of 10, about a delinquent juvenile, Xavier Dolan, of three-way romance Heartbeats and Denis Ct, of father-daughter drama Curling.

Jay Baruchel is up for a best actor award for Montreal-shot movie, The Trotsky, in which he plays a high school student who believes he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. He is competing against Franois Papineau in road movie Route 132 and Claude Legault, who counsels the juvenile in 10.

The Jutra nominations were announced at a press conference in Montreal Wednesday morning. The 13th annual Soire des Jutra will take place March 13 and is to be broadcast live on Radio-Canada Television.