* Winner of the Genie Award for Best Motion Picture (aka the Canadian Oscars)  One of the most successful gay indie films of the ’90s, Lilies won four Canadian Genie Awards® (the equivalent of the American Oscars®) including Best Picture, and won critical acclaim worldwide. John Greyson’s Lilies is an emotionally intense, suspense-laden tale of love, betrayal and revenge in which one man’s past comes back to haunt him and another man’s past comes to bring him freedom.
In 1952, Catholic Bishop Bilodeau (Marcel Sabourin, Sum of All Fears) makes an exceptional in-person visit to a prison to hear a dying inmate’s last confession. Once in the confessional, the Bishop is confronted by his childhood friend, Simon (Aubert Pallascio, 3 Needles), who collaborates with his fellow inmates to take the Bishop hostage and re-enact Simon’s version of the events that led to his murder conviction forty years earlier, in their rural village, of young Vallier.
This flashback story centers on two boys who are madly in love with each other. Young Simon (Jason Cadieux) and Vallier (Danny Gilmore) are cast in a school play about Caesar meeting St. Sebastian. And young Bilodeau, a closeted man secretly in love with Vallier, tries to be close to his love but sees Simon as an obstacle. The action moves back and forth, seamlessly through time, between the crude prison and the actual events of 1912, culminating in the tragic night when both men’s fates are decided and their true love is lost forever.

“Two of the most beautiful young men to grace the screen in recent years.” — San Francisco Examiner Winner, Audience Favorite — Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival Winner, Grand Jury Award, Outstanding American Narrative Feature — Outfest: Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film FestivalWinner, Audience Award, Best Feature — Frameline: San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film FestivalWinner, Best Motion Picture — Genie AwardsWinner, Best Canadian Film — Montreal World Film FestivalWinner, Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design — Genie AwardsWinner, Best Achievement in Costume Design — Genie AwardsWinner, Best Achievement in Overall Sound — Genie AwardsNominee, Outstanding Film (Limited Release) — GLAAD Media Awards Nominee, Best Cinematography — Chlotrudis AwardsGenie Awards Nominations:Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Jason CadieuxBest Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Matthew FergusonBest Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Danny GilmoreBest Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Alexander ChapmanBest Achievement in DirectionBest Achievement in CinematographyBest Achievement in EditingBest Screenplay, Adapted, Michel Marc BouchardBest Achievement in Music – Original ScoreBest Achievement in Sound Editing