Homegrown works ready for their day in spotlight
Short film series looks back on the year we had and what may be ahead
Canadian film takes centre stage once again as National Canadian Film Day (NCFD) returns April 21 for its eighth year.
The NCFD, founded by Reel Canada, a charitable organization that celebrates and promotes Canadian film, is online for the second year due to the pandemic.
More than 40 film festivals from across Canada will be hosting special screenings and events with filmmakers.
Also slated are 150 community watch parties and 25-plus international events. Movie fans can access great Canadian films through numerous broadcasters and streaming services. For details visit canfilmday.ca.
A highlight of this year's event is the Light(s) at the End of the Tunnel short film series.
A mix of live-action, animation and documentary, the 11 shorts commissioned by Reel Canada and Netflix Canada, are between one and six minutes long and offer a look at what we have been living through since the pandemic began.
“By the time we got to January, we had to figure out something,” Reel Canada executive director and co-founder Jack Blum said about creating new content for this year's day. “We thought, well, the vaccine is out (and) the weather is going to be getting nicer. There's a sense ... that we are going to get through this and we thought, let's try to find a light at the end of the tunnel. Now, of course, you can't go a day without someone talking about light at the end of the tunnel. We caught the moment.”
The chosen filmmakers were given $10,000 and some equipment and told to have at it.
“Keep in mind, this project didn't exist 16 weeks ago. We put out a call to about 40 young filmmakers and we got that many proposals back and it was very, very tight. Young, new and very diverse voices,” added the Toronto-based Blum.
One of the 15 filmmakers producing work for the series is Vancouver's Andrew Huculiak. At the centre of his four-and-half-minute film, SARS-COV-2, is a person reflecting on the year that has passed.
“It's a short narrative about an individual who is sitting in a chair; you only see their eyes at the beginning,” Huculiak said of the live-action, narrative offering with Emily Schoen taking the lead role.
“Showing you just a window to the soul that we've all gotten used to reading people's emotion by. Nothing else. Then some thoughts start to come in and some different visions and vignettes from the year passed,” said Huculiak, who previously made the award-winning feature films Violent and Ash.
“It's mostly rapid fire and disjointed, much like the human brain, going on these tangents of memories that may connect or may not connect and they are representative of her last year and at the end of the story she gets the vaccine and kind of just sits there for a moment.”
Huculiak, who wrote and edited the film, said the overarching theme is how the vaccine is going to change the course of things, but we shouldn't forget that many new normals now exist.
“There is this sort of meditative mantra through it: when things get back to normal. That is such a cliché,” said Huculiak. “Everyone has heard that and everyone is talking about when things get back to normal. When things open up. You know, I think the effects are going to stick with us for a lot longer.”
The Light(s) at the End of the Tunnel shorts series is just one of the interesting programming streams being offered on NCFD. Others include the streaming of the classic Canadian comedy Meatballs with a live Q&A after with director Ivan Reitman.
The late great Christopher Plummer's career will be highlighted with the Canadian films The Silent Partner (1978) and Remember (2015). There will be conversations with people who worked with him, including director Atom Egoyan.
There's a packed Indigenous-made slate of films, including a screening of the feature Rustic Oracle, with an appearance by director Sonia Bonspille Boileau.
Also to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the film You Are Here: A Come from Away Story will play and be followed by a Q&A with director Moze Mossanen.
Thousands of high school students will participate in an anti-racism livestream event that will look at the realities of being Black and Indigenous in Canada and will feature filmmakers Charles Officer and Boileau. Other filmmakers taking part in the event are Patricia Rozema, Philippe Falardeau, Don Mckellar, Bruce Mcdonald, Anne Émond, Michael Kirby, Jason Eisener and Kate Lynch.
There is this sort of meditative mantra through it: when things get back to normal . ... Everyone has heard that and everyone is talking about when things get back to normal. ... I think the effects are going to stick with us for a lot longer.