When recent graduates of the Canadian Film Centre and the American Film Institute gathered to compare North America’s different filmmaking systems earlier this week at the University of Toronto, sparks should have flown. Instead, the moderator and six panelists mildly criticized Telefilm Canada’s vague funding criteria, while offering muted applause to Hollywood’s mercenary approach to feature films.

The hardest blow was delivered by AFI graduate Jeff Stephenson, who noted that, ‘when you think of Canadian cinema, it’s a dark, twisted art film.’

Summit organizer Gavin Heffernan offered moderate praise for the American system, which, he said, ‘is honest in its sleaziness and pure in its impurity.’

‘Their system is run by money. It’s all about the bottom line. It’s really honest there,’ added organizer Danielle Shamash.

Like many movies, The Film Summit was created in Los Angeles by Canadians. Heffernan and Shamash, transplanted Ontarians living in L.A., completed their thesis films at the AFI earlier this year and wanted to show them back home in Toronto.

‘We started to talk about the differences between Canada and the U.S.,’ comments Heffernan. ‘Danielle thought it would be a good idea to get together with the CFC, put filmmakers from there in with us, show films and confront the issues head-on.’

Kathryn Emslie, the director of film and TV at CFC, was sympathetic and put Shamash in contact with directors Renuka Jeyapalan and Vivieno Caldinelli, who had made high-profile graduate films.

What came out of the evening’s screenings was the realization that a lot of young, talented filmmakers are being developed by institutes on both sides of the border. Jeyapalan’s intimate character study Big Girl, which garnered TIFF’s ShortCuts Best Canadian Short award in 2005, was screened alongside Caldinelli’s over-the-top lumberjack comedy If I See Randy Again, Do You Want Me to Hit Him with the Axe?

While Telefilm drew criticism, the CFC garnered praise for the high quality of its shorts. The major difference between the AFI’s method and CFC’s is in the gathering of production dollars. Students at the AFI must raise most of their budgets, which can be as high as $65,000, with only $11,000 institutional seed money, while the CFC covers nearly all the costs.

Shamash and Heffernan hope to continue the summit next year. Both ‘would love to work here,’ provided they could create viable, audience-driven entertainment. Even Stephenson admits, ‘I’d love to fly the Canadian art flag sometimes but also have a parallel identity in a local commercial industry.’