Toronto’s film-loving set has a good reason – or 56 good reasons – to swap the couch and streaming services for the big screen this week. The Canadian Film Fest (CFF) presented by Super Channel, has returned to Cineplex Scotiabank Theatre (March 18 to 23) to showcase Canadian talent from coast to coast through a diverse selection of shorts and features. The indie-spirited festival will captivate audiences with feature films from Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia that have been selected by the best in the bustling Canadian industry. For those in the business, this year’s festival also features its largest industry series to date, with workshops, panels, and masterclasses all week long.
The Canadian Film Fest will showcase 11 feature films and 45 shorts – complete with a famous face (or voice!) or two in the mix. While the films naturally vary in subject matter, the common denominators of the CFF are inclusion, diversity, and representation. This year, 35 films (63%) were created by BIPOC filmmakers and 33 films (59%) were created by female or non-binary filmmakers.
The festival kicks off with Ian Harnarine’s Doubles, a touching feature about a Trinidadian street vendor who travels to Toronto to decide if he will help save his estranged father from dying. The film is adapted from Ian’s acclaimed short Doubles with Slight Pepper, which won Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF 2011 and Best Live Action Short Drama at the 2012 Canadian Screen Awards (CSAs).
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Other festival highlights include Audrey Cummings’ western, Place of Bones, which stars Heather Graham and Tom Hopper and tells the story of an 1876 bank robbery gone wrong; Anna Fahr’s compelling Valley of Exile, about two sisters seeking refuge in Lebanon after fleeing their home during the Syrian civil war; Winnipeg director Sean Garrity’s moving film The Burning Season, which chronicles an affair unfolding backwards in a reverse narrative; and the deeply personal documentary WaaPake(Tomorrow) where director Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin shares the impact and suffering of residential school Survivors.
“We are so proud to continue uniting film-lovers with an outstanding lineup, celebrating Canadian stories that resonate with people across the nation,” says Canadian Film Fest director, Ashleigh Rains. “From heartfelt narratives to bold cinematic visions, this year’s program champions fresh new voices that will captivate and inspire. At CFF, we have a rich tradition of amplifying Canadian talent exclusively, and we can’t wait to welcome new and returning audiences and filmmakers to the festival to share some of the most innovative works our country has to offer.”
In addition to each feature film being preceded by a short, the CFF will also present six Homegrown Shorts programs. These enlightening and hard-hitting short films dive into things like addiction, identity, cultural heritage, rebellion, cosmic disasters, and more.
Highlights include Aaron Hong and M.R. Horhager’s animated short Three Trees, narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, about three young trees who learn about themselves, friendship and their place in the world; Christopher Yip’s Fish Boya tender meditation on religion, queerness, and polyamory through the eyes of an Asian American teenager; Katie Uhlmann’s When You Know You…Know? about how social media affects our everyday lives; Eva Thomas’s Redlights, where an evening outing takes a dangerous turn for two Indigenous women; and Katia Café-Fébrissy’s Still Waters about a young queer couple coping with the loss of their child.
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While the films inevitably captivate, hit home, pull at the heartstrings, and entertain, the festival’s industry programming will also provide both seasoned and up-and-coming filmmakers with valuable skills. This year’s programming includes everything from panels on acquisition & distribution, to how to navigate the film festival circuit and making a soundtrack song.
For the rest of us, if you’re in the market to be moved (to tears, in some cases), inspired, and left with something to think about, check out the CFF lineup here.
