Starting this fall, the Toronto International Film Festival will replace its venerable Perspective Canada program with two new fest showcases of Canuck cinema, in a bid to keep up with the growing international profile of top domestic filmmakers.

The newly minted Canada First! program will now house the features from first-time Canuck directors as well as films from helmers making their first TIFF appearance. Feature dramas from veteran filmmakers will be dispersed among the fest’s various international programs, docs will appear in Real to Reel, and short films will be shifted to the new Short Cuts Canada sidebar. The moves come as the business side of TIFF has exploded.

‘As the festival has become more important as a marketplace, the filmmakers, producers and distributors are very concerned about the positioning of their films,’ says TIFF Group CEO Piers Handling.

For example, at last year’s fest, Rhombus International was looking to sell Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World. As part of the bargaining process that goes into placing a film at TIFF, the filmmakers requested a spot outside of Perspective Canada in the Special Presentations category, screening at the posh Elgin Theatre.

For 20 years, Perspective Canada was the launch pad for the lion’s share of TIFF’s Canadian dramatic features and shorts, with rookie directors sharing the spotlight with established auteurs. It was launched with the intention of promoting a young generation of rising filmmakers, which over the years has included the likes of Atom Egoyan, Bruce McDonald and Jeremy Podeswa. The program served its purpose – these directors achieved profile for themselves and their films traveled to other festivals and garnered acclaim.

‘Some of them, coming back to [Perspective Canada] with their new work, felt as if they had outgrown the program,’ Handling says.

A decade ago, formal discussions between TIFF brass and the local film community concluded with the sense that all was well with Perspective Canada, but feedback in the past four or five years was more mixed. This time TIFF consulted with three different groups, including a senior group of filmmakers with Egoyan, Clement Virgo, Don McKellar, Rhombus producer Niv Fichman and actor/director Sarah Polley present. The opinions of doc makers and up and comers were also sought out.

The senior contingent essentially said that it wants its films to play alongside the fest’s top-flight international fare and enjoy all the media and industry attention that comes with that.

Handling sees TIFF maintaining its commitment to young filmmakers with Short Cuts Canada and Canada First!, which will present eight to 15 feature films annually. He adds that the overall number of Canadian films at TIFF will not change (30 or more features and 40 to 60 shorts), but the fest will be upping its resources regarding Canadian films with the addition of another programmer to join Liz Czach and Stacey Donen.

While Handling says it’s too soon to tell how this year’s film selection is shaping up, the Canuck programmers have begun screening shorts and have traveled to Montreal to view features. They will soon be Vancouver-bound, while Handling is off to Europe in early July for key international screenings. TIFF’s 29th annual edition unspools Sept. 9-18.

-www.tiffg.ca