Canadians make noise at

Sundance Film Festival

Gerry Flahive is interim director of the National Film Board Ontario Centre.

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‘Sundance Institute and Telefilm Canada in association with British Columbia Film Commission, British Columbia Film, Calgary Film Services, Canadian Consulate General, Location Manitoba (cido), New Brunswick Film and Video, Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, Edmonton Motion Picture and TV Bureau, Ontario Film Development Corporation, Prince Edward Island Film Office, Saskatchewan Film and Video Development Corporation, Toronto Film and Television Office, and Joe Boxer and Roots Canada Ltd. invite you to a reception honoring Canadian Film and Filmmakers at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival.’

As you can see, Canada is taking this festival seriously.

But it works both ways, as Sundance this year presented its largest-ever selection of Canadian films (ranging from Atom Egoyan’s Exotica to Mina Shum’s Double Happiness to Peter Mettler’s Picture of Light). There is more than a little synergy at work, since Sundance has always championed the independent spirit – films with an edge, or two – and Canadians are delivering just that.

This lineup definitely didn’t feel like a pat on the head – Sundance audiences want to see these movies.

It’s too early to tell, as I write, whether this year’s Park City screenings will lead to commercial success, but audience reaction has been warm, with Mina Shum garnering tremendous applause (‘I guess you liked it’) and Mettler being asked for his autograph and being pressed by a tv crew.

Double Happiness opens in 15 u.s. markets later this year through Fine Line; Picture of Light has already opened in Switzerland.

The Canadian confidence shows also in a playful promotional willingness to laugh at our stereotypes: imported maple syrup at the Canadian brunch andÉwell, I never got a business card from a red-uniformed rcmp officer until I came here (the presence of Corporal Mike Duguay at a photo opportunity was cited by the l.a. Times as an example of pr chutzpah).

Canadians show up in the darndest places here (not surprising given the sign at one festival site: ‘Avalanche Workshop, Room 205’?) from Heather MacDonald, an expatriate Canadian, whose powerful u.s. documentary Ballot Measure 9, about anti-gay legislation in Oregon will air on tvontario on March 1, to Ralph Benmergui, whose voice can be heard on the radio in Jim Lane’s personal documentary, I Am Not An Anthropologist.

An audience of 200 attended the Sunday morning panel discussion ‘The Changing Face of Canadian Cinema.’

Although poor old John Grierson was blamed yet again for stifling dramatic expression in Canadian film in favor of documentary, the panel members (including Egoyan, Bruce McDonald, Piers Handling and Peter Katadotis) expressed a confident, realistic, market-aware and, dare one say it, post-colonial attitude towards the future.

The need to demonstrably ‘be Canadian’ has faded, but films that are rooted in something Canadian but travel well (Egoyan joked about ensuring foreign success for Exotica by conducting advance demographic research about the theatrical market in Singapore) are the target.

Moderator Len Klady mused that the future for Canadian films in Europe might be especially bright, given the disarray of European cinema. If there is no distinctive Canadian ‘style’ (something not regretted by the panel), there is a sense of collaboration and mutual support; panelist McDonald may have said it best: ‘I’ve always been fueled by a community of ideas.’

But, believe it or not, there’s more to Sundance than Canadians. ‘Victim of its own success’ is a phrase heard from everyone from Robert Redford to box office telephone operators (‘Be glad you’re not staying for the second half, everything is sold out then’). Although Park City might be constructing an arts center next year with a 1,500-seat theater, the festival, for now, has to cram filmmakers, publicists, journalists, a professor of sociology, a story editor from Hanna-Barbera and l.a. agents into screening rooms in such sites as a hotel and the public library.

Agents were probably the intended audience for the prescreening announcement, ‘Please turn off your phones.’ You can drink gap bottled water (or watch a short film – not a commercial – cosponsored by gap). You can consider following up on phone messages not intended for you (‘Please call Anna Wintour at Ritz in Paris – it’s very important’). You can leave your business card under the windshield wiper of one u.s. cable acquisition executive (well, they were parked next to meÉ). Or you can simply watch films.

Mostly, I saw documentaries – this is the festival where Hoop Dreams broke through. This year, there’s no obvious successor, but some challenging and disturbing works nonetheless (most shot in Hi-8). No Loans Today is a clear-eyed and compassionate look at the patrons of a South Central l.a. pawnshop; Jupiter’s Wife is a moving journey into the mind and home – Central Park – of a mentally ill woman who has created her own complex mythology; When Billy Broke His Head is the in-your-face personal journey of brain-damaged but still-militant Billy Golfus – a sort of Roger And Me for the disabled community.

Many have already been seen on some pbs affiliates; others seek national pbs exposure or sales to Cinemax or to the newly announced Sundance Channel. Hinted at last year by Redford, the channel promises to be ‘a place to discover films that are the product of people pursuing their independent vision,’ citing Nick Broomfield’s Tracking Down Maggie and Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer as examples of the documentaries it plans to air.

Certainly the theatrical route remains an unlikely one for most documentaries; Variety’s Len Klady (an ex-Winnipeger) told me his analysis of theatrical box office in 1994 for documentaries revealed a share of less than 1% – and that’s counting high-profile performance films like Lawrence Martin’s You So Crazy.

ButÉa Miramax acquisition executive told me he owns a Forbidden Love t-shirt (inspired by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman’s nfb documentary on lesbian lives). Perhaps we should be developing textiles as well as films.

Alliance, which has been establishing a high-profile here for the past three years, marked the midway point of the festival with a late-night party, featuring music from Dance Me Outside. An ebullient Charlotte Mickie was encouraged by ‘the terrific response the film has gotten here – a standing ovation for Bruce at the q&a.’ When a few partygoers complained that the band was too loud, the ‘Canadians make noise at Sundance’ metaphor seemed irresistible.