Through makeshift movie theaters in classrooms and gymnasiums, 6,000 Toronto-area high school students are getting a front row view of films by Deepa Mehta, Jean-Marc Vallée, Allan King and others through the Reel Canada Film Festival.

The second annual program, now partway through a four-week run ending March 9, aims to raise awareness among Hollywood-minded high school students about Canadian cinema through screenings and Q&A sessions with the filmmakers.

‘We feel the only way to address the question of audiences for Canadian films is this way… in order to instill in them while they’re young that Canadian films are something they would like,’ Reel Canada executive director Jack Blum tells Playback Daily.

Reel Canada expanded to nine schools this year, with students from each crafting their own program lineup from a selection of 21 feature films, documentaries and shorts, including Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. , Mehta’s Oscar-nominated Water, King’s doc EMPz 4 Life and recent multiple Genie winner The Rocket.

‘For many of them, it will be the first time they see a Canadian film, and to be able to meet the filmmakers and be involved in these discussions is life-changing,’ says Reel Canada board member Atom Egoyan, who last year screened his 1998 Oscar-nominated film The Sweet Hereafter.

Mehta flew in from India on Monday to screen Water and got a standing ovation from the kids at West Toronto High School, says organizer Sharon Corder, before flying to Los Angeles for Sunday’s Oscars

‘It was really moving,’ she says.