But if you know where to look – both inside TIFF and outside – there are signs of a new wave of Toronto-based filmmakers who are challenging whatever musty definition of Canadian cinema still haunts the industry. Their work is raw and scrappy, urgent and intense, and driven by a keen sense of frustration – with life, with art and with the system that is supposed to produce homegrown films in the first place. The filmmakers make do with little money and either shun traditional funding bodies or partner with them reluctantly. They focus on the vast, diverse identities that make up Canadian culture, but do not feel bound by any staid, maple-syrup-swigging, hockey-loving, Tragically Hip-listening presuppositions.
Barry released a semi-follow up to the above article, highlighting new Toronto filmmakers (including Ben Petrie!), and an update on the directors profiled in the above article. You can read that here or here.
Just off Toronto’s West Queen West, a few blocks past Trinity Bellwoods Park, looms a narrow three-storey Victorian home in dusty red brick. Its front parlour has housed a number of short-lived enterprises: art galleries and jewellery stores, cafés and Web-design firms. But never has it been so fruitfully commandeered as by its current tenants. These are the headquarters of Zapruder Films. And it’s here that director Matt Johnson – alongside the faithful cadre of producers, editors, cameramen and interns that constitute his crew – furiously, indefatigably toils.