Canada Screens will go down in Canadian film history as one of the building blocks to give Canadians access to Canadian films. When the service launched in 2015, the promise was carefully selected Canadian films by amazing Canadian artists. This was set up to ease Canadians concerns about watching homegrown film.
For those who weren't familiar with the service, the premise was like a video store when you could rent films over the Internet for a small fee. This was exciting in 2015 for Canadians who didn't live near a theatre that would show a Canadian film. No wasted gas, no having to drive to a video store, never having to put on real clothes just to see a Canadian film in your own home.
Canada Screens also came out of the attempt to launch Starlight, an all-Canadian film cable channel in 2013.
Dream of a Starlight Canadian film channel should shift to a streaming service
Starlight is key to opening up eyes to Canadian film
Renting a film and paying for a price for said film is so 2015. Canada Screens was an alternative but never a great alternative. The selection of Canadian film was never huge and didn't seem to grow terribly fast. In the Canadian landscape that was 2015, Canada Screens offered something.
I did use the service once to watch Hochelaga, Land of Souls | Hochelaga, Terre des âmes. The service performed as advertised. The other frustration was that you could access the service on Canadian soil. This was understandable. The service was for Canadians.
The site offered a blog that would have encouraged conversation. There are 4 blog entries: one from 2016 and 3 from 2017. Oops.
If Starlight had become a reality, eventually Starlight would be a streaming service. The Canada Screens approach would have helped Starlight. Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, Jason Priestley, Michael Dowse, Paul Gross, Sarah Gadon, Tatiana Maslany, Zoie Palmer, and others could have recorded videos talking about why they loved a particular Canadian film. Those videos would have been on its YouTube page.
Canada Screens was about building relationships with the people who made and loved Canadian film.
Canada Screens uses Internet to showcase Canadian film
You could argue that the folks at Canada Screens could have expanded the list of Canadian films and turn Canada Screens into a streaming service. The need is still there for a lot of Canadian film that slips through the cracks.
CBC Gem and Crave certainly do their part to have Canadian films available on their streaming services. Crave offers some Canadian film on its cable listings but there are some odd choices. There are some good options on those outlets but they miss a lot of Canadian films.
The equivalent of Turner Classic Movies could offer older Canadian films. We have noted that a lot of early Canadian films aren't really good but there are definitely gems here and there. Canadian Film Vault could be a wonderful title. You could have film experts explain why these Canadian films are significant.
Buying a film versus renting a film in the digital landscape
CBC Gem allows Canadians easy access to Canadian films
South Park realizes the dream of a Canadian content streaming service
Made Nous and other ways to promote Canadian content
Canadian film notebook: Getting more classic Canadian content online
CanadianCrossing.com film coverage
We thought enough of Canada Screens to feature a link on the right side of our blog. You'll notice that the link isn't there anymore.
Canadians now have more options than ever to watch Canadian film from the comfort of their homes. Your humble narrator will say the options are never enough. Thanks to Canada Screens for working to bring important Canadian film to Canadians.
photos credit: Canada Screens
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