A s he prepares to present the Canadian lineup for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) — his last one as a senior programmer before retiring from the organization — Steve Gravestock says he feels it’s a “pretty exciting” time for the domestic industry.

The senior international programmer of festival programming for the Canada and Nordic region points to a strong mix of young and returning Canadian filmmakers this year — from debut features like those of Kelly Fyffe-Marshall (When Morning Comes) and Chandler Levack (I Like Movie), to established directors such as Clement Virgo (Brother) and Babak Payami (752 Is Not A Number), and second or third-time efforts from the likes of Lindsay MacKay (The Swearing Jar), and Lina Rodríguez (So Much Tenderness).

“A lot of diversity, which I think is a huge step forward. Not just from what we programmed but just from what we saw,” Gravestock tells Playback Daily. “A lot of communities that have been neglected are making films about their own communities, which is always essential. When you look at the history of stories being made by people who didn’t know the community as well as the people who lived in that community or are a part of it, I think that’s a really great sign.”

Gravestock estimates the Canadian lineup also has nearly 60% women directors as well as regional representation, signalling the film sector in Canada has “a great system.”

“Like every country outside of the U.S. and a handful of others, there are distribution issues, but the films are good,” he says. “So every year, it’s always been tough to winnow things down. No years were tougher than the last two. But it’s great to see such a huge amount of films this year.”

TIFF announced in June that after nearly two decades of overseeing TIFF’s Canadian programming initiatives, including the Canada’s Top Ten film selection and the year-round See the North program, Gravestock will retire from the organization at the end of this year.

There are “a lot of reasons” for his decision to depart, he says, but ultimately it seems it’s simply the right time.

“It’s like when I used to play shortstop on my baseball team — at a certain point when you couldn’t actually reach over quick enough to get ground balls, you’ve got to move on,” Gravestock laughs. “You don’t want to be like Cal Ripken playing a position you can’t really play anymore. Not that I couldn’t play, but you know what I mean?”

Gravestock also has faith in how Canadian programming will be handled going forward by the team including Ravi Srinivasan, senior manager of festival programming for South and Southeast Asia, and Canada.

“[Srinivasan] is a really smart programmer, he knows the players very well, and he’s got a lot of industry knowledge,” he says. “I think Kelly Boutsalis, who’s working with us now as an associate programmer [of Canadian features], also brings a really solid and unique perspective to the programming. You wouldn’t leave if you thought it was there were going to be problems, and I think the program is in good hands now.”

Anita Lee, TIFF’s new chief programming officer, will also oversee Canadian programming.

Gravestock started programming Canadian feature films for TIFF in 2004, after selecting films from the Philippines, India, Australia, and the Netherlands for the festival. He also programs selections from the Nordic Region, and organized and programmed a national spotlight on Nordic films, among other initiatives.

Being deeply entrenched in curating Canadian filmmaking on an annual basis has given Gravestock a unique window into the health of the industry. The key to its success is having “a variety of films,” he says.

“The odd thing about Canada is it’s not a huge population, but it is a big country, so there’s a lot of distance between regions and a lot of concerns that are specific to regions,” says Gravestock.

“I also think that one of the healthiest things is that the funding agencies and the festivals and the distributors have really stepped up in terms of pursuing diversity. It’s better when a film industry is engaged with the culture, and I think it signals a much deeper engagement with the culture when you see films like Lina Rodríguez’s film, or Katherine Jerkovic’s film [Coyote] or Babak’s film or The Young Arsonists [by Sheila Pye] taking place in a rural area, or the same with Sophie Jarvis’s film [Until Branches Bend] which is in rural B.C. … that kind of that kind of geographic and cultural diversity is really essential.”

Anthony Shim’s Riceboy Sleeps, Rodríguez’s So Much Tenderness, Fyffe-Marshall’s When Morning Comes and V.T. Nayani’s This Place are also examples of “films about immigration and relationship to the country that people came from, or immigrated from,” he adds.

Among Gravestock’s most memorable moments as a Canadian programmer: The Canadian premiere of Zacharias Kunuk’s Inuktitut-language Fast Runner; seeing films like Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies get Oscar nominations; doing Q-and-A’s with veteran Indigenous documentary maker Alanis Obomsawin; and the time Lt. General Romeo Dallaire got a standing ovation while attending the screening of Peter Raymont’s documentary Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire.

“It’s great to see people mature,” says Gravestock. “Some films take off in ways you don’t anticipate. When we showed [Ashley McKenzie’s] Werewolf, the response to that was just so cool. It went everywhere. And we’ve seen it happen with other young filmmakers, like Kaz Radwanski and his MDFF [Medium Density Fibreboard Films], working with Dan Montgomery and with some of the actors, people like Deragh Campbell [in Anne at 13,000 ft].”

Image credit: George Pimentel