I would love to spend all day watching Canadian films. Just because you have time doesn't mean you can see the films you are trying to chase. I have seen plenty of Canadian films that are easily available and some that were hard to find but got fortunate to see them.
Here are 10 full-length Canadian films and 2 short films that I would love to add to my collection of films I have seen.
1. August 32nd on Earth | Un 32 août sur terre (1998) Denis Villeneuve films should be easier to find once he became famous. Unfortunately, this film has been elusive. iTunes claims the film is available but when you download iTunes, you can't find the film. Pascale Bussières plays a woman who, after a traffic accident, wants to have a baby with her best friend. His provision was that they conceive the baby in the desert.
2. Emporte-Moi | Set Me Free (1999) The Léa Pool film stars a young Karine Vanasse set in Quebec in 1963. Vanasse's character compares herself to Anna Karina's character in Vivre sa vie from Jean-Luc Godard. Pascale Bussières plays her mother. This film was scheduled to be shown but the people offering the film could not find a copy with English subtitles.
3. Life Classes (1987) The William D. MacGillivray film starts out with Mary, who is pregnant woman, leaving her small town for Halifax. After she has the baby, she poses in art school classes to earn a living.
4. Blue (1992) The Don McKellar short film, his directorial debut, is about a mild-mannered guy obsessed with hardcore porn. The film features Brad Armstrong (aka Rod Hopkins), David Cronenberg, and McKellar's long-time partner Tracy Wright. We don't normally feature too many shorts but this is an exception.
5. Les Salopes or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin | Les salopes ou le sucre naturel de la peau (2018) Don't know too much about this film but the approach toward female sexuality in an aggressive fashion was highly intriguing, especially from female writer/director Renée Beaulieu.
6. Bird (2017) This is another short film on the list mostly because this is the writer/director debut from Molly Parker, one of my favourite Canadian actors. Sam is a woman dealing with a lot of issues, including the disappearance of her mother's pet bird. Always curious with an actor I like watching them try their hands at writing/directing.
7. The True Nature of Bernadette | La vraie nature de Bernadette (1972) This Gilles Carle film is about how Bernadette leaves behind her wedding ring and her husband and goes off with their young son to find her natural self in nature.
8. Columbus of Sex (1970) Before Ivan Reitman became famous for Meatballs, Stripes, and Ghostbusters, Reitman and Dan Goldberg made a film where they were convicted under Canada's decency laws and put on probation. Given Canada's standards back then, the film can't be all that bad. I still want to know.
9. Montréal Stories (1991) The film is a collection of 6 short films from acclaimed directors with stories about Montréal. Denys Arcand, Michel Brault, Atom Egoyan, Jacques Leduc, Léa Pool, and Patricia Rozema each write and direct a film. We are particularly interested in Desperanto (Rozema) starring Sheila McCarthy as a Toronto housewife who crashes a Francophone party. The languages rarely mix in Canadian film so we are intrigued.
10. Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the 70's Generation (1999) "Just watch me" is a phrase made famous by Pierre Trudeau. Catherine Annau created a documentary on about the legacy Trudeau's work toward a bilingual nation. She interviews 8 people on their view on bilingualism in their lives.
11. Eclipse (1994) Jeremy Podeswa is best known for The Five Senses (1999) but this earlier work centres on unerotic sexual couplings in Toronto in the days leading up to a total eclipse.
12. Desire in Motion | Mouvements du désir (1994) An earlier film from Léa Pool features a man and woman falling in love on a train ride from Montréal to Vancouver.
Canadian film review: Maelstrom
Canadian film review: Polytechnique
Oscar nomination should help people find Denis Villeneuve Quebec films
CanadianCrossing.com film coverage
The chase for entries in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards is certainly a factor. Films listed as 1, 2, and 7 fall in that category, though they are on this list for their own merit as a film. Un crabe dans la tête | Soft Shell Man (2001) might be more about knocking off a film from that list. Am still interested in this André Turpin film.
French-Canadian films are often more difficult to find than English-Canadian films, though that does depend on the film.
Don McKellar and Molly Parker worked together in Twitch City (1998), a Canadian TV show. Their short film ideas elevate themselves to this list.
If I somehow view all 12 of these films someday, there are more to add. For right now, this list has plenty going for these Canadian films.
photo credit: August 32nd on Earth | Un 32 août sur terre film
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