The NFB garners 6 nominations for the 2009 Genie Awards

This year, five NFB productions are up for a total of six awards at the 2009 Genies.

Theodore Ushev’s Drux Flux and Claude Cloutier’s Sleeping Betty are both up for Best Animated Short, while Yung Chang’s Up the Yangtze and Jean-Claude Labrecque’s Infiniment Québec compete for Best Documentary. Heaven on Earth, Deepa Mehta’s latest feature, is up for two awards – Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Preity Zinta) and Original Screenplay (Deepa Mehta).

Both Heaven on Earth and Drux Flux made the TIFF Group’s Top Ten Films of 2008 and Top Ten Short Films of 2008, respectively.  Up the Yangtze has also been having a stellar year – it’s up for Best Documentary at the 2009 Film Independent Spirit Awards and has already won the Golden Horse Award in Taiwan.

The 29th Annual Genie Awards take place on April 4.

To tide you over until then, watch the trailer for Up the Yangtze…