TORONTO -- A daring Quebec-made movie featuring a talking fish and a hit-and-run accident cleaned up at the 21st annual Genie Awards last night.

Montreal filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's surrealistic drama Maelstrom won best picture and four other categories to dominate the Canadian film awards for 2000.

The 1,700 film community members of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television celebrated Villeneuve's effort and also tossed a few Genies to Robert Lepage's Possible Worlds, Denys Arcand's Stardom and Denise Filiatrault's Laura Cadieux ... La Suite.

The Genies aired live on CBC-TV from the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, with Brian Linehan as host. Villeneuve said he felt better going into the Genies than he does facing the opposition at the Quebec-only Jutra Awards, which are coming up soon. That's because the reception at the Toronto filmfest last September remains the best his film has ever received. "I knew there was good vibes around the film."

Trailing Maelstrom were Clement Virgo's Love Come Down with three Genies and Possible Worlds with two.

Maelstrom creator Villeneuve personally took home two trophies, for best director and for writing the best screenplay.

Villeneuve's reluctant leading lady, the sublime Marie-Josee Croze, won as best actress despite having turned down the role when Villeneuve first offered it to her.

Fighting back tears, Croze dedicated her Genie to her mom back in Montreal, explaining that she would give the award to her when she got home. For herself, Croze said: "Now I could die because I realize my dream and my dream was to do something I could be proud of."

Backstage, Croze explained why her mother, Dolores Croze, was so important.

"My mother adopted me when I was three," the 30-year-old beauty said. Without her, the actress said as the emotion welled up in her voice, "I don't think I would be here today. My mother is a saint."

Winning as best actor was Montreal veteran Tony Nardi, star of My Father's Angel, while best supporting actor prize went to Martin Cummins, who is an actor as well as a director. Cummins won for his key dramatic role in the family redemption saga Love Come Down.

Backstage, Cummins said he was delighted when his friend Helen Shaver won as best supporting actress for co-starring as a frumpy prostitute in Cummins' directorial effort, We All Fall Down.

Shaver, calling her win "a nice way to start an evening," said of her performance and her own tumultuous background: "I've fallen down a lot in my life. It's really wonderful to use my experience at the bottom for something like this."

Popular Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann took home the best documentary Genie for Grass, his clever history of marijuana use and abuse in the U.S.

Mann, quipping that getting his Genie was "a natural high," used his win as a platform to urge Canada to decriminalize marijuana. "I think it's time we stopped arresting marijuana smokers," he told the audience to some applause.

The Claude Jutra Award -- which goes to the best rookie director and was previously announced -- was given to Quebecker Philippe Falardeau for La Moitie Gauche Du Frigo, one of the underground hits at the Toronto film fest last year.

Falardeau tossed off one of the best quips of the night, offering an insight about making obscure little movies in this country: "I think Canadian films are like Canadian beers -- there are fine local products but it's just tough to get them across the borders of the provinces."


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