Canada’s Top Ten films of 2017 full of promise
Canada’s Top Ten might easily be mistaken for a list of movies by promising unknowns.
Where, on TIFF’s annual ranking of the year’s best, are David Cronenberg, Deepa Mehta, Denis Villeneuve, Sarah Polley, Jean-Marc Vallée, Xavier Dolan and other leading lights of our national cinema, who were on lists of previous years?
Half of the films on the list, unveiled Wednesday, were made by newcomers, with just one or two features on their resumés: Kyle Rideout’s classroom comedy Adventures in Public School, Carlos and Jason Sanchez’s psychological thriller Allure, Sadaf Foroughi’s cultural identity drama Ava, Wayne Wapeemukwa’s underclass exposition Luk’Luk’I and Kathleen Hepburn’s family study Never Steady, Never Still.
Among the rest on the list are just two directors who could be considered well-known filmmakers: Alanis Obomsawin and Charles Officer, both of whom contribute to our national conversations about colonization, race issues and civil rights with their respective docs Our People Will Be Healed and Unarmed Verses.
Most of the 10 features haven’t yet had a commercial release, a situation TIFF will help rectify when it screens them, along with a raft of celebrated shorts, in the 17th annual Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival, which runs Jan. 12 to 21 at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Is lack of name recognition a problem? Not in the minds of Cameron Bailey, TIFF’s artistic director, and Steve Gravestock, a TIFF senior programmer specializing in Canadian film.
“I think Canada has a deep bench when it comes to movies,” Bailey says.
“There’s such a range of filmmaking and so many different kinds of voices coming out of filmmakers who are just beginning their careers. I think it’s a great sign for the health of film culture in this country.”
Adds Gravestock: “It’s a real tribute to the vision of these young emerging directors. The depth of the insight they bring into their characters, and the skill of the writing, I think, is a real nod to the Canadian system.”
To answer the question I posed above about the household names missing from TIFF’s Top Ten list, there are good reasons why many of the directors you’d expect to see included this year were MIA.
David Cronenberg and Deepa Mehta didn’t release films this year. Denis Villeneuve had the U.S.backed sci-fi blockbuster Blade Runner 2049, which wouldn’t have qualified for TIFF’s list.
Sarah Polley and Jean-Marc Vallée had big TV series, Alias Grace and Big Little Lies, respectively. Xavier Dolan is busy making his first English-language film, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.
In other words, it may just be that they’ve graduated beyond the admittedly narrow confines of Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival.
“The advantage of making films in Canada is that if you want to, and you’re good enough, you can make the shift pretty easily to south of the border,” Bailey says.
There’s another reason why TIFF’s Top Ten Canuck tally looks a tad unfamiliar this year. TIFF broke from its tradition of convening a 10-member national panel of filmmakers, journalists, programmers and industry professionals to adjudicate the best in Canadian feature films.
This used to be quite a big deal, as well as an honour. I sat on the 2011 panel, which that year included Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, Polley’s Take This Waltz and Vallée’s Café de flore among its Top Ten feature selection.
The change this year was to keep everything in-house. TIFF drew on the experience of Bailey, Gravestock, director/CEO Piers Handling, programmers Kerri Craddock and Magali Simard and other TIFF staffers to compile the Top Ten feature and shorts lists. This is undoubtedly partly an economy measure — large projects like these cost money — but it also recognizes the vast expertise TIFF has under its roof.
This could also explain why eight of the 10 features on this year’s list premiered at TIFF 2017. But I can remember years when members of the press, present company included, were moaning about how TIFF paid too much attention to films made by well-known Canadians.
So TIFF’s Top Ten list might be light on boldface, but it’s heavy with promise — although I was surprised to see that Joyce Wong’s Wexford Plaza and Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner weren’t on it, to name just two of many overlooked talents.
With TIFF’s Canadian content, the maple syrup bottle is either half empty or half full, depending on how you choose to look at it.
Either way, Bailey promises, you’re sure to see great movies.
“Some years you’re going to have the filmmakers who are familiar names, if you’ve been following Canadian film for decades. And some years you’re not. But the quality of the films is as high as ever.” Peter Howell is the Star’s movie critic. His column usually runs Fridays.