The National Capital Commission (NCC) has announced a week of free film screenings in the lead-up to the Genie Awards, the annual awards for the best in Canadian film.

Among the highlights of the screenings and other events to take place between March 28 and April 4 is a screening of multiple nominee Passchendaele, a film about the First World War, at the Diefenbunker, a Cold War-era bunker near Ottawa.

This year's Genies will, for the first time, take place in Ottawa on Saturday, April 4.

The ceremony is expected to bring about 800 film industry professionals to the capital.

The NCC's Guy Laflamme says the commission wants give the public a chance to discover Canadian film.

"We have come up with a very sexy program," he said. "Imagine being able to watch Passchendaele in the Diefenbunker, that's just going to be so real … being able to see The Necessities of Life, which is about the cultural challenges faced by Inuit people, in the National Gallery, then taking a tour with a curator specializing in Inuit culture."

Screening of Benoît Pilon's Ce qu'il faut pour vivre (The Necessities of Life), nominated for eight Genies, including best picture, will be twinned with a visit to the High-Definition Inuit Storytelling exhibit at the National Gallery.

The film is about an Inuit hunter confined to a Quebec sanatorium during the 1950s tuberculosis epidemic.

Amal, a love story set in India created by Toronto's Richie Mehta, will be screened at a drive-in outside the Canada Aviation Museum and at an event featuring Indian dancing, music and food at Centrepointe Theatre.

More than 20 public events, most of them free screenings of the nominated films, have been planned for the week.

The best picture Genie nominees are Amal, Ce qu'il faut pour vivre, Normal, Passchendaele and Tout est Parfait.