A panel assembled by the Toronto International Film Festival has voted on the 10 best Canadian films of 2002, and the results were announced at a recent Toronto soiree hosted by actors Arsinee Khanjian and Fabrizio Filippo.

Canada’s Top Ten, presented in alphabetical order, are: director Atom Egoyan’s Ararat, Guy Maddin’s Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, which aired on CBC, Keith Behrman’s debut feature Flower & Garnet, Peter Mettler’s doc Gambling, Gods and LSD, editor Wiebke von Carolsfeld’s directorial turn on Marion Bridge, Robert Morin’s controversial Le Neg’, Catherine Martin’s short Ocean, David Cronenberg’s Spider, Mike Hoolboom’s doc Tom and Manon Briand’s La Turbulence des fluides (Chaos and Desire).

Notably absent from the list are Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood/Hollywood and rookie helmer Ricardo Trogi’s Quebec-Montreal, both of which are up for the best motion picture Genie Award later this month. (Other nominated films qualified for last year’s Top Ten – to have qualified, films must have either premiered at a Canadian film festival or obtained a commercial theatrical release in Canada in 2002.)

This year’s panel included producer Luc Dery; Laura Michalchyshyn, senior VP of Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting; Tom McSorley, executive director of the Canadian Film Institute; directors William D. MacGillivray, Bruce Sweeney and John Walker; film critics Katherine Monk and Geoff Pevere; Segolene Roederer, general and artistic director of Rendezvous du cinema quebecois; and Jerry White, University of Alberta Professor of Film/Media studies.

Meanwhile, the Igloolik Isuma Productions/National Film Board copro Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which led off 2001’s Top Ten list, has been cited on more than 60 North American critics’ lists of Top 10 Movies in 2002, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and others, according to the film’s producers.

-www.topten.ca