Canada will be well represented at this year’s installment of TIFF – the Toronto International Film Festival announced a number of Canadians who will be showcases at the event, including works by Xavier Dolan (“Mommy”) and Denys Arcand (“An Eye For Beauty”).
David Cronenberg’s “Maps to the Stars” will be a Gala event.
“I think the Quebecois are really hungry to see themselves on screen,” said senior programmer Steve Gravestock to The Canadian Press. “But Xavier’s a unique talent no matter where he came from. He’s quite young and he’s an extraordinary voice and he’s a born filmmaker. That’s very rare.”
TIFF also announced on Wednesday that they will screen the new documentary “Trick or Treaty?” from celebrated filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. The 82-year-old delves into the tangled history of Treaty 9 (the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories) to reveal the deceptions and distortions that the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands. “I also wanted to show in the film a wonderful large group of young people who have made up their minds to walk, some of them 1,600 kilometres, to Parliament Hill to let their will be known. It’s a time that is very different from before. It says… our young people are recognizing themselves and their ancestors,” she said in the same article.
Twenty-one programmers from six different continents choose which films will screen and be showcased each year at TIFF.
Photo: Cinzia Camela/WENN.com
