PARK CITY, UTAH-Quebec filmmaker Philippe Falardeau is glad he ate his Lucky Charms Tuesday morning.

As the Monsieur Lazhar writer-director nervously waited to hear if his film was among the Best Foreign Language film Oscar nominees just after sunrise, he was told by the film’s producers what he needed was a bowl of the sugary kids’ cereal.

“My producers did that also last year for Incendies,” said Falardeu with a smile. It worked for Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, which was nominated last year (it lost to Denmark’s In a Better World.) And it worked for Falardeau, who “jumped into my producer’s arms like a baby” when he heard the word “Canada.”

“We screamed,” said Falardeau, who looked tired but exhilarated as he chatted with the Star at a Park City hotel Tuesday morning during the Sundance Film Festival. “There was a feeling of happiness but there was a feeling of relief, emotional relief. That’s when I realized it was so stressful and to be stressed for something you never dreamed about or envisioned. It was a dream come true but a dream I never had.”

Monsieur Lazhar is a delightful and deeply moving story about an Algerian immigrant who talks his way into a job at a Montreal elementary school after the sudden death of a teacher leaves her students reeling. It opens in theatres on Friday.

It’s up against Belgium’s Bullhead, Israel’s Footnote, Poland’s In Darkness and Iran’s A Separation, which is the favourite to take home Oscar after winning the Golden Globe for best foreign-language film earlier this month.

In Darkness also has Canuck connections. It’s a Canadian-Polish-German co-production set in Nazi-occupied Poland and based on a true story about a Polish sewer worker who hides a group of Jewish men, women and children in sewers. It’s written by Toronto’s David Shamoon and produced by Canadians Eric Jordan and Paul Stephens. It opens Feb. 17.

The Oscars telecast is Feb. 26 on CTV.

Monsieur Lazhar, which was named TIFF’s best Canadian feature and won the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, has nine Genie Award nominations. In Darkness has three.

Other Canadians who netted Oscar nominations include Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor for Beginners, composer Howard Shore for his work on Hugo, the National Film Board of Canada shorts Wild Life and Sunday and sound mixer David Giammarco for Moneyball.

With files from Canadian Press