Adding a touch of  Hollywood North  glam to this year's Genie Awards proceedings, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television honoured the  nominees from Western Canada last night (March 22) at  an  intimate reception at  the chic  Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Vancouver.

The event was emceed by local actor Sonja Bennett (Young People Fucking; Control Alt Delete, which is slated for an April 23 release), with speeches made  by the Academy Western Canada vice-chair Terry McEvoy, Academy CEO Sara Morton, and Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, who talked about the importance of the local film industry.  

Nominees in attendance included:
Ӣ Charles Officer, nominated for achievement in direction and original screenplay for Nurse.Fighter.Boy (he also accepted for Karen LeBlanc, who is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role);
Ӣ LeBlanc will be competing against Gabrielle Rose, nominated for her role in Mothers&Daughters;
Ӣ Bruce Alcock and Tina Ouellette for "Vive La Rose", nominated for best animated short;
”¢ producer Stephen Hegyes (along with producer Shawn Williamson, who wasn't able to attend) for Kari Skogland's  Fifty Dead Men Walking, which is up for best motion picture;
”¢ Ben Mink, also  nominated  for Fifty Dead Men Walking , for achievement in music (original score).

Nominees who were unable to make it to the event included Joshua Jackson, up for best actor in a leading role for the cross-Canada road-trip movie One Week, and Don Carmody, who is named alongside Maxime Rémillard in the best motion picture category for the  grim  Montreal massacre drama Polytechnique. Also, Manitoba's Derek Mazur and Cordell Barker, up for best animated short for "Runaway/ Train en Folie ", were not in attendance.

Among those mingling  in the crowd were actor Tantoo Cardinal (Mothers&Daughters), Mothers&Daughters director Carl Bessai, filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns ("Yellow Sticky Notes"), the  Celluloid Social Club's Paul Armstrong, and many more.

The 30th annual Genie Awards will take place on April 12 in Toronto.  The  awards ceremony  will be broadcast live on the Independent Film Channel and via live webcast on CBC.ca on Monday, April 12, 2010 at 9 p.m. EDT.

Congrats to  all the nominees and best of luck at the awards!