100 Best Canadian Films – Jim Shedden

Merry Christmas, happy holidays and I hope everyone has a good and healthy new year.  If you’re looking for a nice holiday film, here are two of my favorites that could put you in a nice festive mood: Gilles Carle’s La vie heureuse de Léopold Z and Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. both which are Christmas films. Anyways hopefully during this winter break you can relax a little and enjoy yourselves, spend some time with your family and loved ones, and while you're at it eat well.

It’s highly likely that this will be the last 100 Best Canadian Films list of 2017 and, after having already posted 23 of them, I can safely say that I am quite happy with how the series turned out. The series, though, will probably still be open for contributions up until at the latest the end of February and I was thinking of making a master-list afterwards where I will put all of them together. But I’m having some doubts these days if people are even interested in this project so maybe if any readers want to express an interest or offer to help, that would be greatly appreciated.

100 Best Canadian Films is an open series of personal surveys of Canadian cinema history. Other lists includes those by Philippe Gajan, Kevin Laforest, Steve Gravestock, Olena Decock, Dan Browne, Réalisatrices Équitables and Films Fatales Montréal, Helen Faradji, Fabrice Montal, Stephen Broomer, Paul Corupe, David L. Pike, Jerry White, André Loiselle, Paul Williams, Greg Klymkiw, Pat Mullen, Jason Anderson, Daniel Kremer, Yves Lever, Piers Handling, Marcel Jean, Mike Hoolboom and myself.  – D.D.

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David D. asked me to make a personal list of “100 Best Canadian Films.” I’m really glad that the responses to this have been idiosyncratic, as my list won’t be like any of the others.

What follows is 100 Canadian films that I really like, 100 films that somehow touched me emotionally or intellectually. There is no attempt at balance: more than half of them are by experimental, avant-garde and artist filmmakers because that’s what I have liked about filmmaking from our country more than anything else. I haven’t divided the films by genre, however, because I’m going to pretend that, for today, it doesn’t matter. The films are organized by director. There is no hierarchy within the list of 100.

That being said, there is no attempt to put forward a definition of Canadian film other than films made by people who consider themselves Canadian. They weren’t all shot or finished here (nb. Wavelength as the most famous example in that regard). I’m interested in various theories and histories of Canadian film, and I am, in fact, working on one myself with a couple of other people, but ultimately I can’t abide by a theory of Canadian anything that excludes an interesting book, film, play, or movie made by a person born here or living here or otherwise considering themselves Canadian, because it doesn’t match a theoretical picture of “Canadian”.

I am including multiple films by a number of filmmakers. However, I do tend towards earlier films, ones that I saw two and three decades ago, like Peter Mettler’s student work. I don’t include any work by Elder after Consolations, and no work by Snow after So Is This. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the newer work, but the older work rewired by emotional infrastructure when I saw it, partly a testament to the work, and partly a testament to the openness of Jim Shedden the teenager.

There are, I’m sure dozens or even hundreds of interesting Canadian films that I simply haven’t seen yet. It’s obvious from people’s lists. I think the only lists where I’ve seen over 80% of the films are Mike Hoolboom’s and Stephen Broomer’s. Even there, I feel very far behind on the current crop of avant-garde films. There seems to be a lot of good work coming out faster than I can see it. I have yet to see Stephen Broomer’s Potamkin, for example, so it’s not on the list.

I am woefully ignorant of Québècois cinema. And I’m not happy about the overall diversity of the list that follows. It’s mostly white males. More work needs to be done, but this is where I’m at today. – J.S.

Jim Shedden’s 100 Best Canadian Films

1. Kay Armatage. Jill Johnson: October 1975, 1977.

2. Jennifer Baichwal. Manufactured Landscapes, 2006.

3. Michel Brault. Les ordres, 1974.

4. Donald Brittain and Don Owen. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen, 1966.

5. Stephen Broomer. Christ Church - St. James, 2011.

6. Stephen Broomer. Pepper’s Ghost, 2013.

7. Carl Brown. neige noire (w/ John Kamevaar), 2003.

8. Dan Browne. Alberta, 2014.

9. Colin Brunton. The Last Pogo, 1978/2008 + The Last Pogo Jumps Again, 2013.

10. Colin Campbell. Janus, 1973.

11. Jack Chambers. Circle, 1968-69.

12. Jack Chambers. Hart of London, 1968-70.

13. Shawn Chapelle. Natalie of Wood, 2001.

14. Christopher Chapman. A Place to Stand, 1967.

15. Janis Cole and Holly Dale. Hookers on Davie, 1984.

16. David Cronenberg. Rabid, 1977.

17. David Cronenberg. Videodrome, 1983.

18. David Cronenberg. The Dead Zone, 1983.

19. Keewatin Dewdney. Maltese Cross Movement.

20. Keewatin Dewdney. Wildwood Flower.

21. Atom Egoyan. Next of Kin, 1984.

22. Atom Egoyan. Krapp’s Last Tape, 2000.

23. Bruce Elder. The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1979.

24. Bruce Elder. Illuminated Texts, 1983.

25. Bruce Elder. Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World, 1985.

26. Bruce Elder. Consolations (Love is an Art of Time), 1988.

27. Clint Enns. A Knight’s Walk, 2014.

28. Graeme Ferguson. North of Superior, 1971.

29. Vera Frenkel. The Secret Life Of Cornelia Lumsden, 1979-80.

30. Chris Gallagher. Seeing in the Rain, 1981.

31. Chris Gallagher. Mirage, 1983.

32. John Greyson. Fig Trees, 2009. 

33. Barry Greenwald. Taxi!, 1982.

34. Rick Hancox. Home for Christmas, 1978.

35. Phil Hoffman. On the Pond, 1978.

36. Phil Hoffman. Kitchener-Berlin, 1990.

37. Mike Hoolboom, Subway Stops, 2017 (installation).

38. Stanley Jackson, Wolf Koenig and Terence Macartney-Filgate. The Days Before Christmas, 1958.

39. Chris Kennedy. Towards a Vanishing Point, 2012.

40. Richard Kerr. Vesta Lunch, 1978.

41. Richard Kerr. Six Stories (On Land, Over Water), 1981.

42. Richard Kerr. Morning… Came a Day Early, 2016.

43. Alan King. A Married Couple, 1969.

44. John Kneller. Axis, 2013.

45. Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor. Glenn Gould On the Record + Glenn Gould Off the Record, 1959.

46. Eva Kolcze. All That is Solid, 2014.

47. Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn. Nunavut (Our Land), 1994-95.

48. Helen Lee. Sally’s Beauty Spot, 1990.

49. Arthur Lipsett. Very Nice, Very Nice, 1961.

50. Keith Lock. Everything Everywhere Again Alive, 1975.

51. Brenda Longfellow. Shadow Maker: Gwendolyn McEwan, Poet, 1998.

52. Andrew Lugg. Front and Back, 1972.

53. Guy Maddin. My Winnipeg, 2007.

54. Ron Mann. Imagine the Sound, 1981.

55. Ron Mann. Poetry in Motion, 1982.

56. Ron Mann. Comic Book Confidential, 1988.

57. Ron Mann. The Twist, 1992.

58. Bruce McDonald. Knock! Knock!, 1985.

59. Bruce McDonald. Roadkill, 1989.

60. Normal McLaren. Pas de deux, 1968.

61. Lorne Marin. Rhapsody on a Theme from a House Movie, 1972.

62. Peter Mettler. Eastern Avenue, 1985.

63. Peter Mettler. Picture of Light, 1994.

64. David Morris. Super 8 Cycle.

65. Brian Nash. bp: Pushing the Boundaries, 1997.

66. Midi Onodera. The Bird Chirped on Bathurst, 1981.

67. Susan Oxtoby. January 15, 1991: Gulf War Diary, 1991.

68. Andrew J. Paterson. Basic Motel, 1980.

69. Madi Piller. Untitled, 1925, 2016.

70. Kathleen Pirrie Adams and Paula Gignac. Excess is What I Came For, 1994.

71. Sarah Polley. Stories We Tell, 2012.

72. John Porter. Wallpaper Films (18-film cycle for Fifth Column), 1983-1990.

73. John Price. View of then Falls from the Canadian Side, 2006.

74. Isabella Pruska-Oldenhof. This Town of Toronto, 2012.

75. Isabella Pruska-Oldenhof. Her Carnal Longings, 2003.

76. Al Razutis. 98.3Khz: (Bridge at Electrical Storm), 1973.

77. Steve Reinke. The Hundred Videos, 1989-1996.

78. David Rimmer. Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper, 1970.

79. David Rimmer. Bricolage, 1984.

80. Patricia Rozema. Into the Forest, 2015.

81. Tom Sherman. TVideo, 1980.

82. Michael Snow. Wavelength, 1967.

83. Michael Snow. Standard Time, 1967.

84. Michael Snow. <——>, 1969.

85. Michael Snow. La région centrale, 1971.

86. Michael Snow. Rameau’s Nephew by Diderot (thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen, 1974.

87. Michael Snow. So is This, 1982.

88. Lisa Steele. Birthday Suit, 1974.

89. Barbara Sternberg. Transitions, 1982.

90. Barbara Sternberg. A Trilogy, 1985.

91. Barbara Sternberg. In the Nature of Things, 2011.

92. Leslie Supnet. In Still Time, 2015.

93. Gariné Torossian. Sparklehorse, 1999.

94. Joyce Wieland. Sailboat, 1967-68.

95. Joyce Wieland. Handtinting, 1967-68.

96. Joyce Wieland. Rat Life and Diet in North America, 1970.

97. Joyce Wieland. Pierre Vallières, 1972.

98. Joyce Wieland. A and B in Ontario (w/ Hollis Frampton), 1984.

99. Alan Zweig. Vinyl, 2000.

100. Alan Zweig. When Jews Were Funny, 2013.

NFB Release: Don Owen’s Holstein

The announcement and release of a rare older Don Owen film is as good a reason as any to get excited: Holstein (1978) is now available to watch on the NFB website, which already has been doing a good job at putting up his work. Holstein is a more mature, serene work for Owen. This is fourteen years of being a filmmaker and travelling after his breakout film Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964). It’s a period of settling down for Owen as he would move away from urban centers to take residence and live in Green River in the Ontario countryside and take on smaller, more intimate projects: working a farm, raising a family, cooking, poetry and painting. 
                 This is the period between Cowboy and Indian (1972), Partners (1976) and Unfinished Business (1984) where Owen took on small projects for CBC television to make a series of vignettes about small town Ontario life. These were intended to be broadcasted between other programs and they were known by several titles, which includes Faces of Ontario / Ontario Towns and Villages, Not Far from Home and The St. Lawrence … More than a River (1974). Holstein is a little later on in 1978, and which was made with the NFB.

Owen in his memoir Captain Donald’s Quest for Crazy Wisdom describes these works, “During this period, I was able to earn a living by making a series of small films, for which I was a one man crew. Mainly, I produced portraits of small towns that seemed destined to vanish off the map, since the railway or highway was going somewhere else. I would record the voice of a senior talking about the life of the town and then shoot visuals to go along with it, as though the one person’s voice was the voice of the town. It was a kind of anthropology of Ontario, which recorded the culture of rural Ontario’s past. I sold these short pieces to the CBC and TVO, as fillers.”

            But these works were important for Owen as an ever-evolving artist and Holstein, as the only available example of these short films, is striking for several reasons. To get to its basics: Holstein is a twenty-seven minute documentary on the community of Holstein in rural Ontario set in the wintertime. There’s a classic elegance to Owen’s documentary skills through how he selects his subjects, frames them and edits everything together. It’s an elegiac portrait of this older community that is sticking around Holstein even though much of the industry has moved away (the train that used to past through it, at least twice a week, no longer runs) and it beautifully captures the region’s anachronistic way of life. The general store is still a community hub, horse carriages are still a common form of transportation and the only other industries on display are its blacksmith and granary.

            This is farming land and cottage country. But even still there is much life and activity. The church is well featured and school buses go by and children are regularly around. Holstein is a meditation on the changing countryside through its focus on the seniors that are still running its remaining industry. There’s a general store, lumberyard, a granary and in one striking scene the last blacksmith carefully replaces the horseshoe on one of its horses. It’s a mentality that’s being captured throughout Holstein: That of straightforward, honest wisdom of what it’s like to live on this land. Its residents' speak of their work ethics, life on a farm, staying in Holstein, and their comradery within their community. With Holstein Owen is examining the Canadian identity through this community embedded in their regional activity. It’s a work of transmission: to articulate and share the region’s way of life and activity, that of embedding himself in his new community and to learn himself from these seniors, and in the process he can share his own work and beliefs to his son (who was an assistant on the film and, I think, you can hear him question some of the residents).

Owen with Holstein is offering a modest proposal: let’s film the countryside around where one lives, with a small crew (including his own son Andrew, listed as one of the assistants), to capture its beauty, rhythm, and to film its citizens, with respect and care, and to learn about the lives of its seniors and the behavior of its youth. What Owen achieves is that he brings heart and a personality to a cinematic equivalent of the Canadian landscape painting tradition. Out of Owen’s twenty previous projects in the film industry, these portraits of small town Ontario are his first that explored the rural countryside and especially of his own Ontario. Even though Holstein is more conventional than say the work of Jack Chambers (The Hart of London) or Joyce Wieland (Reason Over Passion), it should still be remembered as one of the great cinematic extensions of the Canadian landscape tradition. This is in the art history painting tradition of Cornelius Krieghoff and the Group of Seven. As well Owen was creating an Ontario counter-part to its more modern, cinematographic form like those that were made by the Québécois cinéma vérité directors (Les raquetteurs, Pour la suite du monde). The last scene of Holstein that ends with a landscape at dawn clearly illustrates the natural beauty of the Canadian countryside.

            But Holstein is also a more mature work for Owen. In his earlier Nobody Waved Good-bye and even A Further Glimpse of Joey, Owen sided with the troubled and angry youth and his guerrilla style of filmmaking had a mischievous quality to it: he would film conversations and encounters without their participants consent and he would ‘steal’ scenes that were filmed in Toronto without any permission or permits (a scene of Peter stealing a book illustrates this ethos). But now after the portraits of the middle aged artists in Cowboys and Indians, Owen is more on the side of Holstein’s seniors and his (not so) hidden camera (these scenes are shot in a relatively small general store) use its element of surprise and anonymity to capture the beauty of the community’s quotidian: customers being themselves, making conversation and smiling towards the camera. The scene of the shop owner and his wife playing their instruments (a violin and piano) show how the artistic temperament and creativity can take place just about anywhere and by anyone. This technique, humanity, community and geography are just part of Owen’s directing style, which reach a mature crescendo here in Holstein.

            But what ever happened to Don Owen and why isn’t he better known today? Steve Gravestock in Don Owen: Notes on a Filmmaker and his Culture well describes how he was culturally eclipsed, “A curious thing happened in the decade following the end of the tax shelter era in 1982. The group of filmmakers who had emerged in the sixties and early seventies were almost completely forgotten, especially in English Canada… The tax shelter regulations, which resulted in an undue, perverse emphasis on genre films featuring has-been American stars, stalled the careers of many veteran Canadian directors, most notably Owen, Don Shebib and even Allan King (at least in feature filmmaking)… In some ways, the neglect is understandable. There was an astonishing wealth of talent that emerged in this period, notably the Toronto New Wave.”

                 But it’s still worth returning to Owen as he’s an important precursor to the identity of Toronto and Ontario filmmaking. His directorial style, like that of Allan King (Warrendale, A Married Couple), was one of transforming reality to the level of fiction, with an emphasis on the imaginative hybrid between the two, which also focused on regional narratives and its geography. As Justin Decloux reminds us in his bold essay ‘Why The Hell Don’t We Watch Canadian Cinema?’ the history of Canadian cinema is fading. But there are positive things happening like how the NFB uploaded Holstein. This is important because as more Canadian film history is becoming accessible its traces in its contemporary forms are becoming more clear. For example, you can see traces of the Owen of Nobody Waved Good-bye in the work of Kazik Radwanski (Tower) and Matt Johnson (Nirvanna The Band The Show) and now the Owen of Holstein in Rebeccah Love’s Acres. Canadian film history still has a lot to teach us.

NFB Highlight : Kurelek

Kurelek, William Pettigrew, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

100 Best Canadian Films – Philippe Gajan

It’s now a yearly ritual: every October it’s necessary to plan a trip to Montreal to attend the Festival du nouveau cinéma. FNC is affordable, easy to manage, the films are catered towards cinephiles and all of which makes it a lot fun. Its evening events at the Agora are also always memorable as you can casually chat with the who’s who of the Québécois film industry. And at the center of this there’s its co-director of programing Philippe Gajan who does a great job at presenting these works, many of them premieres, to the local audience. Gajan is also the director of the best Québécois, and more generally, film magazine 24 Images. So it is then no surprise that just like how the FNC is cool, and  24 Images is cool, so is his list of 100 best Canadian films, it's cool.

The series 100 Best Canadian Films is soon coming to an end. Hopefully if you have an interest in contributing please send it to me by the end of this year (but I’ll still be accepting them until the end of February). Hopefully afterwards I’ll be putting them all together into a master-list, which I think would be an interesting project. Happy holidays and thanks to everyone who contributed.

100 Best Canadian Films is an open series of personal surveys of Canadian cinema history. Other lists includes those by Kevin Laforest, Steve Gravestock, Olena Decock, Dan Browne, Réalisatrices Équitables and Films Fatales Montréal, Helen Faradji, Fabrice Montal, Stephen Broomer, Paul Corupe, David L. Pike, Jerry White, André Loiselle, Paul Williams, Greg Klymkiw, Pat Mullen, Jason Anderson, Daniel Kremer, Yves Lever, Piers Handling, Marcel Jean, Mike Hoolboom and myself.  – D.D.

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Ce fut un cauchemar... Un exercice extraordinaire puisque j'ai plongé dans la mémoire (la mienne, celle des films). J'ai choisi de ne prendre qu'un film par cinéaste (sauf Perrault et Brault) pour faire de la place, sinon les Carle, Forcier, Morin, Lefebvre, etc., auraient trusté la liste... Pour plus de diversité, par amour pour tous ces films... Et pourtant il en manque, et pourtant je ne saurais dire si ce sont les meilleurs. Quels critères ? Par exemple, je n'ai pas mis les hollywoodiens (Villeneuve, Vallée, etc...) mais j'ai laissé un Cronenberg... Bref, voici 100 films marquants pour moi, en toute subjectivité... – P.G.

Philippe Gajan’s 100 Best Canadian Films

- Neighbours (Norman McLaren, 1952)

- Paul Tomkowitz: Street Railway Switchman (Roman Kroitor, 1953)

- City of Gold (Wolf Koenig, Colin Low, 1957)

- Les Brûlés (Bernard Devlin, 1959)

- Les Désœuvrés (René Bail, 1959)

- Very Nice, Very Nice (Arthur Lipsett, 1961)

- À Saint-Henri le cinq septembre (Hubert Juin, 1962)

- À tout prendre (Claude Jutra, 1963)

- Pour la suite du monde (Pierre Perrault, Michel Brault, Marcel Carriére, 1963)

- Rat Life and Diet in North America (Joyce Wieland, 1968)

- Essai à la mille (Jean-Claude Labrecque, 1971)

- Françoise Durocher, Waitress (André Brassard, 1972)

- Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper (David Rimmer, 1972)

- La Vraie Nature de Bernadette (Gilles Carles, 1972)

- La vie rêvée (Mireille Dansereau, 1972)

- La faim (Peter Foldes, 1972)

- Le bonhomme (Pierre Maheu, 1972)

- Les Filles du Roy (Anne Claire Poirier, 1974)

- Montreal Main (Frank Vitale, 1974)

- Les ordres (Michel Brault, 1974)

- The Book of All The Dead (R. Bruce Elder, 1975-1994)

- L'Eau chaude, l'eau frette (André Forcier, 1976)

- The Street (Caroline Leaf, 1976)

- Le Paysagiste (Jacques Drouin, 1976)

- Parlez-nous d'amour (Jean-Claude Lord, 1976)

- 24 heures ou plus... (Gilles Groulx, 1977)

- Le chateau de sable (Coe Hoedeman, 1977)

- Le vieux pays où Rimbaud est mort (Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, 1977)

- Les bons débarras (Francis Mankiewicz, 1980)

- Springtime in Greenland (John Paizs, 1981)

- Le Confort et l’indiférence (Denys Arcand, 1982)

- La bête lumineuse (Pierre Perrault, 1982)

- Mémoire battante (Arthur Lamothe, 1983)

- La turlute des années dures (Richard Boutet, Pascal Gélinas, 1983)

- La femme de l’hôtel (Léa Pool, 1984)

- Sonatine (Micheline Lanctôt, 1984)

- L’homme qui plantait des arbres (Frédéric Back, 1987)

- Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)

- Alias Will James (Jacques Godbout, 1988)

- The Last Days of Contrition (Richard Kerr, 1988)

- Trois pommes à côté du sommeil (Jacques Leduc, 1989)

- La Queue tigrée d'un chat comme un pendentif de pare-brise (Jean-claude Bustros, 1989)

- La liberté d’une statue (Olivier Asselin, 1990)

- La Sarrazine (Paul Tana, 1991)

- Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick, 1992)

- Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (Alanis Obomsawin, 1993)

- 32 films brefs sur Glenn Gould (François Girard, 1993)

- Le Temps des bouffons (Pierre Falardeau, 1993)

- Zigrail (André Turpin, 1995)

- A Prayer For Nettie (Donigan Cumming, 1995)

- Sans raison apparente (Jean Chabot, 1995)

- Le confessionnal (Robert Lepage, 1995)

- Yes Sir! Madame… (Robert Morin, 1995)

- Hard Core Logo (Bruce McDonald, 1996)

- Le Trésor archange (Fernand Bélanger, 1996)

- La plante humaine (Pierre Hébert, 1996)

- 9 St-Augustin (Serge Giguère, 1996)

- The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)

- The Street : A Film with the Homeless (Dan Cross, 1997)

- Oh la la du narrative (Sylvie Laliberté, 1997)

- Avant le jour (Lucie Lambert, 1999)

- Soul Cages (Philip Barker, 2000)

- À l'ombre d'Hollywood (Sylvie Groulx, 2000)

- Trois princesses pour Roland (André-Line Beauparlant, 2001)

- Mariages (Catherine Martin, 2001)

- Life Without Death (Frank Cole, 2002)

- Gambling, Gods and LSD (Peter Mettler, 2002)

- Gaz Bar Blues (Louis Bélanger, 2003)

- Manufactured Landscapes (Jennifer Baichwal, 2006)

- View of the Falls from the Canadian Side (John Price, 2006)

- Rechercher Victor Pellerin (Sophie Deraspe, 2006)

- The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (Zacharias Kunuk, 2006)

- My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007)

- À l'ouest de Pluton (Myriam Verreault, Henri Bernadet, 2008)

- L'Encerclement - La démocratie dans les rets du néolibéralisme (Richard Brouillette, 2008)

- La théorie du tout (Céline Baril, 2009)

- Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis (Daichi Saito, 2009)

- Hommes à louer (Rodrigue Jean, 2009)

- John Max, a Portrait (Michel Lamothe, 2010)

- Les Journaux de Lipsett (Theodore Ushev, 2010)

- La Vie privée du cinéma (Denys Desjardins, 2011)

- Pieces and Love All to Hell (Dominic Gagnon, 2011)

- En terrains connus (Stéphane Lafleur, 2011)

- Ne crâne pas sois modeste (Deco Dawson, 2012)

- Bestiaire (Denis Côté, 2012)

- Rebelle (Kim Nguyen, 2012)

- Brouillard - passage #14 (Alexandre Larose, 2013)

- Météore (François Delisle, 2013)

- Soif (Michèle Cournoyer, 2013)

- Le Démantèlement (Sébastien Pilote, 2013)

- Transatlantique (Félix Dufour-Laperrière, 2014)

- Mobiliser (Caroline Monnet, 2015)

- Minarsky, chute mortelle (Matthew Rankin, 2015)

- Les démons (Philippe Lesage, 2015)

- Maudite Poutine (Karl Lemieux, 2016)

- Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Mathieu Denis et Simon Lavoie, 2016)

- We Make Couples (Mike Hoolboom, 2016)

- Combat au bout de la nuit (Sylvain L'Espérance, 2016)

- La part du diable (Luc Bourdon, 2017)

- Les Affamés (Robin Aubert, 2017)

Toronto Film Review x Toronto Arts Report

Upcoming : Wexford Plaza, Dim the Fluorescents and Nirvanna Pop Up Shop !

With the end of the year fast approaching, I want to highlight the theatrical releases of a couple much anticipated Toronto films and special events. Joyce Wong’s Wexford Plaza tells the story of an awkward young woman who is a security guard at a Scarborough strip mall as she tries to manage her complicated life. It’s an intimate, sensitive, awkward and funny story as the film surprisingly shifts to a second perspective in its second half, which poignantly reveals the complexity of truths, emotions and relationships. Wexford Plaza opens tonight at the Carlton cinema and will play for a week. Next up is Daniel Warth’s Dim the Fluorescents also opening at the Carlton December 8^th to the 14^th. I haven’t seen it yet, but the Globe included it in its list of the films that could be the ‘saviours of the season.’ Quite the honour! And finally, some good news for fans for Nirvanna The Band, the rumours seem to be true that they’ll open a pop up shop set up next Friday December 8^th through to the 10^th at Show Gallery (978 Queen Street West). The hours for its run are Friday (4-9PM), Saturday (1-10PM) and Sunday (1-6PM). We’re excited to see what kind of merch they come up, and I’m sure they’ll make for excellent gifts for the holidays. And with the news that the Born Ruffians will have five nights of performances at Lee’s Palace in February for their forthcoming LP Uncle, Duke and the Chief, with special appearances by Brave Shores and Matt and Jay from NTB, there’s finally some nice things to look forward to!

100 Best Canadian Films – Kevin Laforest

One of the reliable film critic-bloggers from Montréal, Kevin Laforest regularly publishes film reviews on his website Extra Beurre. His 100 Best Canadian Films list shows a knowledge, breadth and diversity of Canadian cinema, which is an honor to our cinephilia. These films can provide hours of enjoyment and reflection and you should seek some of them out if you haven’t seen many. If I can personally recommend two: they would be La Tête de Normande St-Onge (by one of my favorite Canadian directors Gilles Carle) and André Turpin’s Zigrail (which recently played at FNC and is in process of getting restored).

I need to thank Kevin for contributing to this 100 Best Canadian Films series and to everyone else that already has. Usually I've been asking folks, whether in person at film events or online, if they want to contribute. I know that it’s work to put these together and that there is no compensation, that this blog has no ‘institutional’ weight and working relationships can be on the line, but that shouldn't be a good enough reason for all of the non-responses to my emails and friendly rejections to the offer (which can become disheartening), by folks whose mandates seem to be on the contrary to promote Canadian cinema. I would like to post many more 100 Best Canadian Films lists, by more diverse contributors, but what more can one do? Other, more ironic responses that I've gotten includes jokes about never having seen that many Canadian films or not being able to list that many great ones. But, in all seriousness, I still think the project is worth it - after the series is over, I plan to put them all together in a master list. When the public perception of a cinephilia of Canadian cinema is that it’s non-existent, I hope that these lists provide more hope and that they show that there is a serious engagement with the films, TV and media made in the country. I’m always open to get more of contributions. Let me know if you're interested.

100 Best Canadian Films is an open series of personal surveys of Canadian cinema history. Other lists includes those by Steve Gravestock, Olena Decock, Dan Browne, Réalisatrices Équitables and Films Fatales Montréal, Helen Faradji, Fabrice Montal, Stephen Broomer, Paul Corupe, David L. Pike, Jerry White, André Loiselle, Paul Williams, Greg Klymkiw, Pat Mullen, Jason Anderson, Daniel Kremer, Yves Lever, Piers Handling, Marcel Jean, Mike Hoolboom and myself.  – D.D.

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Kevin Laforest’s 100 Best Canadian Films

- Neighbours (Norman McLaren, 1952)

- Les Désœuvrés (René Bail, 1959)

- À tout prendre (Claude Jutra, 1963)

- Le chat dans le sac (Gilles Groulx, 1964)
- Le Révolutionnaire (Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, 1965)

- Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen (Donald Brittain and Don Owen, 1966)

- On est au coton (Denys Arcand, 1970)

- Mon oncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971)

- Les Maudits sauvages (Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, 1971)

- La Vraie nature de Bernadette (Gilles Carle, 1972)

- Réjeanne Padovani (Denys Arcand, 1973) 
- Les Ordres (Michel Brault, 1974)

- The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Ted Kotcheff, 1974)

- La Tête de Normande St-Onge (Gilles Carle, 1975)

- Gina (Denys Arcand, 1975)

- Parlez-nous d’amour (Jean-Claude Lord, 1976)

- Rabid (David Cronenberg, 1977)

- Comme les six doigts de la main (André Melançon, 1978)

- Pea Soup (Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin, 1979)

- Les bons débarras (Francis Mankiewicz, 1980)

- Elvis Gratton (Pierre Falardeau, 1981)

- Le Confort et l’indiférence (Denys Arcand, 1982)

- Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)

- The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg, 1983)

- La Guerre des tuques (1984, André Melançon)

- The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)

- Jésus de Montréal (Denys Arcand, 1989)

- Simon les nuages (Roger Cantin, 1990)

- Ding et Dong, le film (Alain Chartrand, 1990)

- Léolo (Jean-Claude Lauzon, 1992)

- Requiem pour un beau sans-coeur (Robert Morin, 1992)

- Le Temps des bouffons (Pierre Falardeau, 1993)

- Nô (Robert Lepage, 1997)

- Yes Sir! Madame… (Robert Morin, 1995)

- Zigrail (André Turpin, 1995)

- Karmina (Gabriel Pelletier, 1996)

- Le Violon rouge (François Girard, 1998)

- Matroni et moi (Jean-Philippe Duval, 1999)

- eXistenZ (David Cronenberg, 1999)

- Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000)

- Lost and Delirious (Léa Pool, 2001)

- 15 Février 1839 (Pierre Falardeau, 2001)

- Le Nèg' (Robert Morin, 2002)

- FUBAR (Michael Dowse, 2002)

- Les Invasions barbares (Denys Arcand, 2003)

- La Face cachée de la lune (Robert Lepage, 2003)

- La Grande séduction (Jean-François Pouliot, 2003)

- Gaz Bar Blues (Louis Bélanger, 2003)

- Les Aimants (Yves Pelletier, 2004)

- A History of Violence (2005, David Cronenberg)

- La Neuvaine (Bernard Émond, 2005)

- Petit Pow! Pow! Noël (Robert Morin, 2005)

- C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2005)

- Congorama (Philippe Falardeau, 2006)

- Cheech (Patrice Sauvé, 2006)

- Away From Her (Sarah Polley, 2006)

- Bon Cop Bad Cop (Érik Canuel, 2006)

- Jonas: La Quête (Jean-François Pilon, 2007)

- Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007)

- Surviving My Mother (Émile Gaudreault, 2007)

- My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007)

- Silk (François Girard, 2007)

- Le Ring (Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, 2007)

- Tout est parfait (Yves Christian Fournier, 2008)

- C’est pas moi, je le jure! (Philippe Falardeau, 2008)

- Babine (Luc Picard, 2008)

- Le Banquet (Sébastien Rose, 2008)

- new denmark (Rafaël Ouellet, 2009)

- Polytechnique (Denis Villeneuve, 2009)

- La Donation (Bernard Émond, 2009)

- The Trotsky (Jacob Tierney, 2009)

- Grand Ourse, la clé des possibles (Patrice Sauvé, 2009)

- De Père en flic (Émile Gaudreault, 2009)

- À l’origine d’un cri  (Robin Aubert, 2010)

- Les Sept jours du talion (Daniel Grou, 2010)

- Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, 2010)

- Curling (Denis Côté, 2010)

- 2 fois une femme (2010, François Delisle)

- Monsieur Lazhar (Philippe Falardeau, 2011)

- The High Cost of Living (Deborah Chow, 2011)

- Camion (Rafaël Ouellet, 2012)

- Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, 2012)

- Rebelle (Kim Nguyen, 2012)

- Goon (Michael Dowse, 2012)

- Tu dors Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur, 2014)

- Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014)

- Endorphine (André Turpin, 2015)

- Turbo Kid (RKSS, 2015)

- Les Êtres chers (Anne Émond, 2015)

- Le profil Amina (Sophie Deraspe, 2015)

- The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson, 2015)

- Prank (Vincent Biron, 2016)

- Juste la fin du monde (Xavier Dolan, 2016)

- King Dave (Daniel Grou, 2016)

- Tuktuq (Robin Aubert, 2016)

- Nelly (Anne Émond, 2016)

- Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie, 2016)

- Les Affamés (Robin Aubert, 2017)

- La Petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes (Simon Lavoie, 2017)

- Le Problème d’infiltration (Robert Morin, 2017)