TORONTO -- Atom Egoyan's controversial and intensely personal drama Ararat dominated the Genie Awards last night, taking five of the golden trophies, including top prize as best picture. The Genies honour the best in Canadian cinema.

Egoyan's film is a complex treatise on cultural memory and responsibility, with a contemporary story built around the legacy of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks.

Arsinee Khanjian -- who also served as co-host with Peter Keleghan for the 23rd Genies at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre -- took the best actress prize for Ararat.

Backstage Khanjian said that Ararat is designed to provoke discussion on the Armenian genocide: "I don't think it is a matter of convincing people. I think it is a matter of enlightening people." In that regard, she regrets that the film has not yet been seen in Turkey and may never be seen there.

Co-producer Robert Lantos said the Genies Ararat won will not translate into commercial success but it is still an honour, especially because he inspired Egoyan to write and direct the picture as an exploration of his Armenian roots. Lantos had publicly challenged Egoyan to write the film after making his own Jewish-themed feature, the Genie-winning Sunshine. "So we've come full circle."

'NERVE-WRACKING'

Elias Koteas, playing a Turkish-Canadian actor who portrays the bloodthirsty Turkish villain in the film-within-the-film, took the best supporting actor prize. Ararat also won for Mychael Danna's original music score and for Beth Pasternak's blend of contemporary and period costumes. Koteas, one of the sweetest, most fragile and most interesting people in Canadian acting cricles, admitted his win left him in a daze.

"It's nerve-wracking, it's an out-of-body experience," Koteas, who was clutching his statuette, told The Sun backstage. When he received it, he told the televised audience: "I was hoping they wouldn't call my name, actually."

Then he explained to a press conference that working again with Atom Egoyan was a dream: "It doesn't get any better than that. It's a blessing."

As for the political controversy surrounding Ararat -- Turkey has threatened the filmmakers with lawsuits and refused to concede the genocide ever took place -- Koteas chose not to get involved. "I don't have a take on it," he said. "There are others who are much more articulate on it."

But writer-producer-director Egoyan, who is currently at the Berlin Film Festival as the president of the awards jury there, lost in his personal Genie category. Nominated for writing the best original screenplay, Egoyan lost that prize to Deepa Mehta, the writer-director of the popular cross-cultural comedy Bollywood/Hollywood.

The full story is at http://www.canoe.com/JamMovies/feb14_genies-sun.html