Benoit Pilon's The Necessities Of Life received eight nominations and Yves-Christian Fornier's Everything Is Fine received seven as the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced the contenders for the 29th-annual Genie Awards.

Necessities Of Life was Canada's submission for the foreign-language Oscar.

The two Quebecois titles were followed closely by other multiple nominees including Paul Gross's WWI epic Passchendaele, Richie Mehta's Amal, Jeremy Podeswa's Fugitive Pieces and Lea Pool's Mommy Is At The Hairdresser's with six each. The race for best motion picture features The Necessities Of Life, Everything Is Fine, Passchendaele and Amal as well as Carl Bessai's Normal.

Gross, Podeswa and Poole were overlooked in the best direction category which was narrowed down to Mehta for Amal, Pilon for Necessities Of Life and Fornier for Everything Is Fine, Bessai for Normal and Lyne Charlebois for Borderline.