The Toronto International Film Festival has a Canada's Top Ten for 2018 Canadian films with new guidelines for presentation. Week-long engagements throughout the year will replace the January festival.
"We're still making the list of films, so that doesn't change at all," said TIFF's co-head Cameron Bailey. "It's really just how those films get delivered to audiences."
The list has 6 films directed or co-directed by women. Here is the 2018 Top Ten list with the directors and province of origin:
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky | Ontario
Sgaawaay K’uuna (Edge of the Knife) Gwaai Edenshaw, Helen Haig-Brown | British Columbia
Firecrackers Jasmin Mozaffari | Ontario
The Fireflies Are Gone (La disparition des lucioles) Sébastien Pilote | Quebec
Freaks Zach Lipovsky, Adam Stein | British Columbia
Genèse (Genesis) Philippe Lesage | Quebec
Giant Little Ones Keith Behrman | Ontario
Mouthpiece Patricia Rozema | Ontario
Roads in February (Les routes en février) Katherine Jerkovic | Quebec
What Walaa Wants Christy Garland | Ontario
I've seen 3 of these films: Anthropocene: The Human Epoch; The Fireflies Are Gone; and Giant Little Ones (below). Edge of the Knife; Firecrackers; Freaks; and Mouthpiece are on my radar.
Both major TIFF 2018 winners made the list. The Fireflies Are Gone won Best Canadian Feature Film and Roads in February won Best Canadian First Feature Film. The latter film takes place mostly in Uruguay.
What Walaa Wants, one of 2 documentaries on the list, focuses on the quest to be one of the few women in the Palestinian Security Forces.
Sgaawaay K’uuna (Edge of the Knife) is the first feature made entirely in the Haida language.
Genèse (Genesis) from Philippe Lesage is from the same director as the molasses-paced The Demons.
2018 TIFF Canada's Top 10
TIFF selects Top 10 Canadian films of 2016
We will be highly curious as to whether the strategy works in Canada to improve accessibility to Canadian films by Canadians. We also don't know about possible changes in patterns of how the list will work in the United States. People outside New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans would like to see Canadian films.
This would be more fun if I were stationed in Toronto. I would be able to give some depth as to whether these were the best titles. Chien de Garde, Canada's nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, is nowhere to be found on the list. Can't say Roads in February would be a better film but likely couldn't be any worse.
2018 WIFF Canadian films in review
The Filmmakers shows what Canadian female directors go through to make a film
Film review: The Fireflies Are Gone
2018 TIFF Canadian film wrapup
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2018 TIFF Canadian film preview
CanadianCrossing.com film reviews
CanadianCrossing.com film coverage
There also is the criticism that most Canadians haven't had access to most or all of these films in 2018. Hopefully, through theatres or Netflix or other streaming service, Canadians will have a chance to see these top titles in Canadian film.
You can track the screenings throughout the year at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in downtown Toronto.
video credit: YouTube/TIFF Trailers
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