This year’s English-Canadian features in TIFF’s Contemporary World Cinema program push the boundaries of controversy. The contingent includes Lucid by Sean Garrity, The French Guy by Ann Marie Fleming and Whole New Thing by Amnon Buchbinder. And all three filmmakers are pleased with how TIFF scheduled them.

‘I was ecstatic,’ says Lucid director and producer Garrity, when he heard he’d been programmed in the international CWC sidebar. Mentioning a past fear of ghetto-ization in being featured in the recently canceled Perspective Canada showcase, he says CWC has already led to commercial interest in Lucid. ‘I didn’t get any of that interest when I was programmed in Perspective Canada,’ says Garrity, who previously helmed the 2001 feature Inertia.

Fleming, who makes her 16th appearance at TIFF with The French Guy, her fourth feature, says it’s time for Canadians to compete commercially alongside everyone else.

‘I didn’t have a problem with [canceling Perspective Canada],’ she says. ‘The same programmers are still going out and choosing those films and they’re still supporting Canadian filmmaking. They’ve raised the profile of Canadian films and I think it’s fantastic that they don’t think that’s needed anymore.’

The French Guy is an effects-heavy dark comedy following the adventures of Elizabeth (Babz Chula from Seven Times Lucky), who experiences some strange personality shifts after major brain surgery. It also stars Tygh Runyan (Kingdom Hospital), Carly Pope (Intern Academy) and Serge Bennathan, artistic director of the Dancemakers dance company, in his film debut. Fleming produces with Adrian Salpeter (The L Word).

What this and the other films have in common is a flirtation – if not outright romance – with controversial themes and subject matter. The French Guy was born out of Fleming’s own desire to confront violence and features themes that include cannibalism.

Lucid, meanwhile, is the story of psychotherapist Joel (Jonas Chernick, Seven Times Lucky), who is attempting to treat several people afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder, including a suicidal woman and a murderously violent man – while his own life falls apart. It also stars the venerable Callum Keith Rennie and Michelle Nolden (Show Me). Frantic Films’ Jamie Brown is also on board as a producer.

Buchbinder’s Whole New Thing possibly raises the stakes even further. The director’s second feature, after 1998’s The Fishing Trip, concerns a 13-year-old boy, played by Aaron Webber in his acting debut, who develops a crush on his 45-year-old teacher, played by Daniel MacIvor. Also starring are Rebecca Jenkins (Wilby Wonderful) and Robert Joy (Land of the Dead), with Rennie also making an appearance. Producers are Camelia Frieberg (Wilby Wonderful) and Kelly Bray.

”You better know what you’re doing,” Buchbinder recalls one funder telling him. (Funders on the film include the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, CHUM Television, The Harold Greenberg Fund and The Movie Network). ‘They thought it would be heavy – intergenerational sex is a queasy topic – but to me it was never really a movie about sex, per se. Some people were definitely concerned that the audience would be distressed by the content, and so far that hasn’t happened with anyone that’s seen it that I’m aware of.

‘It sort of charms people in a way that wasn’t what people would have expected out of the content.’

For her part, Fleming says her film was inspired by a friend’s inadvertent viewing of a Japanese cult horror film, and her own witness to a Toronto domestic dispute that ended in murder.

‘I wanted to play around with having a direct relationship with the audience through being able to tap into some sort of visceral reaction,’ she explains. ‘And I wanted to have some way to deal with this crazy violence. This work is on some thematic level about dealing with the violence that is in all of us.’

Garrity says Lucid eschews the sort of intellectualism Canadian cinema is known for – and which has perhaps limited audiences, he says – in favor of a more raw emotionalism. ‘When I look at some of my favorite Canadian films that never found an audience, that’s the level at which I see them fail… [On this project] we’re interested in making a film that’s entertaining and commercial first.’

Fleming largely echoes this sentiment: ‘I’m really interested in using Toronto to find the markets for this film. I want to prove that it is possible to actually make your money back on a Canadian low-budget feature.’

Financed by Fleming’s mortgage, her former prodco Global Mechanic and Telefilm Canada, and mostly shot in her apartment, The French Guy was budgeted at just under half a million dollars. She says she’s had some broadcaster and distributor interest, including TMN, but has yet to ‘lock anything in.’

Whole New Thing shot for $1 million, a huge step up for Buchbinder, whose last feature was filmed with a student crew for $60,000. The film is distributed in Canada by ThinkFilm and is currently being shown to foreign salespeople. ‘But we haven’t started trying to sell it yet,’ he says.

From script to wrap, Lucid was six years in the making and cost $2 million. Garrity says he’s in talks with some sales agents. ‘This is what the fest is for,’ he says.