Playing Nice: Cinematic Counterpoint in Canada’s Festivals

Canadians have a mythical reputation for their "niceness." With as little bias as proudly born-and-bred Canadians can muster, we must agree that this is largely the case; we're a lovely group of people, famously friendly and forever apologizing. But this "niceness" is finite - and rarely extended toward people outside our hometowns. Ask any resident about Vancouver, and you'll have your ear taken off about how the West Coast lifestyle is infinitely superior; chat with someone from Toronto "the Good" and you will get a treatise on the merits of its cleanliness and modernity; talk to a Montrealer and you'll hear waxing rhapsodic over its bagels and consummate "coolness" - in French, bien sur.

As kind as we Canadians are, we're also engaged in an undeclared competition for precedence, only aggravated by the global attention that increasingly turns to our home and native land - particularly from the cinematic community. A weak dollar and ready pool of local talent has helped Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver establish themselves as major bases for film in Canada, with each bearing distinctive qualities that distinguish them from their peers. As a nation, we ask ourselves, "Does each have something the other doesn't?" And in the unspoken competition for superiority, is there a real winner?

Toronto is Canada's largest city and is a strongly supportive base for film productions, though a significant proportion of these come from abroad. Accordingly, the Toronto Film and Television Office proudly boasts that $898.245 million worth of film and television productions were shot in Toronto in 2005. Dozens of major Hollywood films are shot every year on our streets and in our lots. To name a few notable recent examples: Cinderella Man (2005), Mean Girls (2004), Fever Pitch (2005) and, interestingly, The Sentinel (2006), in which Toronto (for once!) appears as itself. It is a famously transformable city, even stealing Rob Marshall's 2002 hit Chicago away from its rightful home.

In early September each year, T-dot's downtown core is proud host to the Toronto International Film Festival, recognized (locally) as the world's 2nd most important festival, following Cannes, and, in true Canuck fashion, as the nicest. Despite its friendly subtext, TIFF is a heavy hitter, regularly featuring world and North American premieres and borrowing heavily from Cannes successes, which this year will include Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Jury Prize Winner Red Road. While heaven for stargazers at such venues as Bistro 990 and Lobby, it is truly a cinephile's festival, with vouchers for tickets available several months before opening night. It also features Midnight Madness screenings, which sit outside the remit of a traditional market environment and further engender enthusiasm in the traditionally nonplussed film community.

Toronto has been internally criticized for not providing adequate support to burgeoning Canadian talent, but the city does house several important institutions established to assist local filmmakers. These include Oscar-winning director Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre (CFC), which provides advanced professional training, and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), which is a hotbed of support for the production and distribution of homegrown films.

While Toronto may fancy itself a strong filmmaking presence in Canada, granola-eating, outdoors-loving Vancouver reigns supreme as the second largest center for film and television production in North America, following Los Angeles. It is an undeniably beautiful city, and a location manager's dream due to its temperate weather and easy access to varying locales, from mountain ranges to urban centers. In recent years, it has emerged as a major site for science fiction works such as I, Robot (2004), X2: X-Men United (2003) and, famously, TV's "The X-Files," as well as, most recently, Sci-Fi's "Battlestar Galactica." Additionally, it boasts the Vancouver Film School, which Kevin Smith once attended but dropped out of (it would appear the inception of Jay & Silent Bob was of more pressing concern). While it may have the location upper hand, the Vancouver International Film Festival brings up the rear in Canadian festival season, taking place in late September and early October. Although now celebrating its 25th year, and despite annually welcoming around 150,000 people to screenings of more than 300 films, this festival has yet to gain any significant profile.

Montreal can be viewed as Toronto's cooler, and bilingual, older sister - always two steps ahead in music and fashion. However, its Festival des Filmes du Monde suffers for its head start. Taking place days prior to TIFF, it struggles annually to secure significant titles and talent. Furthermore, while it is home to many high-profile productions such as The Aviator (2004), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), its winters, which have famously given birth to a subterranean network of tunnels, prevent the city from stealing the thunder of either Toronto or Vancouver.

However, Montreal is home to perhaps the most successful and salient of Canadian cinema. English-speaking Toronto and Vancouver routinely fail to create output reflecting Canadian-ness such as it is, but Montreal films and filmmakers excel in turning the cameras toward themselves. Québécois cinema benefits from an audience hungry to hear its own language (and box office receipts reflect this) and an inward focus due to their oft-contested independence. In turn, Jean-Marc Vallée's C.R.A.Z.Y (2005), a depiction of suburban Québécois life, deservedly received great acclaim and international distribution, as did Denys Arcand's latest work, Les invasions barbare (The Barbarian Invasions, 2003). Though not as significant a filmmaking hub in generating international film production or attention, Montreal routinely produces evocative, engaging films that reflect itself and its people.

In the spirit of that infamous niceness, it's truly difficult to pick a city any further ahead than the others. Each occupies a distinctive identity in the Canadian landscape, and so does each play a unique role in the scope of Canadian filmmaking. Toronto offers showcasing and profiling opportunities, Vancouver generates outstanding revenues as a filming location, and Montreal serves as a major source of creative Canadian output. One can only hope that all three will develop in tandem, allowing Canada to achieve the greater status it deserves in the scope of filmmaking, eh?