Canadian filmmaker Keith Behrman will receive the award for best debut feature at the 23rd annual Genie Awards on Feb 13.

His film, Flower & Garnet, which debuted in Toronto last year, won Behrman the Vancouver film festival's prize for best emerging western Canadian filmmaker while its screenwriter Nicholas Racz was named the best Western Canadian screenwriter. The film was produced by Trish Dolman of Vancouver-based Screen Siren Pictures and distributed by Alliance Atlantis' Odeon Films.

Meanwhile, in Quebec, veteran Montreal producer Rock Demers, the founder and president of Productions La Fete, will receive the Jutra Hommage at the fifth annual Jutra Awards on Feb 23 in recognition of his long career producing and championing filmmaking in the province. Demers coproduced Moussa Sene Absa's Madame Brouette, a Canada-Senegal-France co-production screening in competition in Berlin.