Homegrown Cosmopolis makes TIFF Top 10 list

Polley and Mehta films also among best at the fest

TORONTO – David Cronenberg’s cerebral thriller, Cosmopolis, Sarah Polley’s deeply personal documentary, Stories We Tell, and Deepa Mehta’s sweeping adaptation of the Salman Rushdie novel Midnight’s Children are among the movies that made the Toronto International Film Festival’s annual list of best homegrown films.

Canada’s top 10 feature and short films were recognized at a gala event in Toronto hosted by Cosmopolis actress Sarah Gadon and director Don McKellar.

TIFF’s artistic director Cameron Bailey says organizers “couldn’t be more impressed by the calibre of films” this year.

They include Michael Dowse’s hockey comedy, Goon, Xavier Dolan’s gender-bending Laurence Anyways and Kim Nguyen’s searing child-soldier drama, Rebelle, which is Canada’s submission for Oscar consideration in the best foreign-language film category.

The top 10 short film list includes Mike Clattenburg’s comedy, Crackin’ Down Hard, Chloe Robichaud’s dramedy, Chef de meute (Herd Leader), Deco Dawson’s surreal Ne crane pas sois modeste (Keep a Modest Head) and Diane Obomsawin’s Kaspar.

The films were chosen by a national panel of seven filmmakers, journalists and industry professionals.

“This is a very nice and frankly really smart list because it represents a variety of different genres and different streams of filmmaking that not every list does,” senior programmer Steve Gravestock said.

“There’s a lot of documentaries on this list — three. I think (that’s) more than we’ve had in a while, which I think acknowledges the fact that it was a pretty intense and quite exceptional year for our documentary filmmakers.”

Rounding out the feature film list is Peter Mettler’s The End of Time, Sean Garrity’s My Awkward Sexual Adventure, Michael McGowan’s Still and Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her.