Genie-nominated director laments lack of screen time
Canadian director Charles Officer, whose film Nurse.Fighter.Boy is up for 10 Genie awards, including best directing, says getting his movie out to Canadian audiences is very tough.
The Toronto helmer’s debut feature chronicles the intersecting lives of three black people รณ a nurse battling sickle-cell anemia, her son, and a broken-down boxer, who finds love and meaning through a chance meeting with the nurse.
Officer says he’s thrilled about his first film.
“I feel overjoyed. I feel like what? Did this really happen?” he told CBC Radio.
Heading into the Genie awards Monday, the film is just behind Polytechnique, about the Montreal Massacre, which has 11 nods. The Genies are Canada’s version of the Academy Awards. While Polytechnique got a lot of media play, Nurse.Fighter.Boy remains in its shadows, struggling to get noticed.
Officer’s film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, has won raves at several festivals but it didn’t get much screen time in Canadian cinemas.
The movie got a week’s screen time in Vancouver and Montreal and three weeks in Toronto. The total box office take was $30,000. It’s now out on DVD.
That’s not unusual for Canadian films, which often have a lack of marketing money, as American films continue to dominate theatre screens across the country.
“I’ve grown up in this country, I’ve seen how we treat our Canadian cinema,” notes Officer.
“It’s a scary thing to actually come into it understanding that there are so many people out there who will never get to see your work in your own country.”
Officer’s movie is up for many prizes, including best original screenplay, as well as best actor nods for Clark Johnson and Karen LeBlanc.
Ingrid Veninger, who co-wrote and produced Nurse.Fighter.Boy, says she’s hoping any hardware the movie brings home on Monday night might spur the movie’s distributor to re-release the film in cinemas.
“Maybe that’ll light a fire. I think that there is maybe a little bit of a toxic attitude that it doesn’t really matter because no one watches Genie awards anyway and it’s already had its chance and its chance has come and gone.”
It doesn’t help the film that major television networks aren’t providing live coverage of the Genies. The show can still be seen on the Independent Film Channel and over the internet at cbc.ca starting at 9 p.m. ET.
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