In addition to the screening of new Canadian films at TIFF 2004, Canuck initiatives this year include a tribute to the late Brian Linehan, a program of films by Pierre Perrault, a revival of The Rowdyman and a daily online fest report from director Rob Stefaniuk.

Celebrating Brian Linehan, an event slated for Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre on Sept. 17, honors Canada’s most famous celebrity interviewer, who recently died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 58. Film critic Roger Ebert hosts the evening, which will feature celebrity guests including Joan Rivers, a friend of Linehan’s, and Martin Short, who spoofed Linehan’s fastidious interviewing style on SCTV. Linehan made his name on the Citytv entertainment show City Lights starting in 1973. Before he passed away, the Hamilton, ON native donated all of his files, video recordings, books and photographs to the TIFF Group’s Film Reference Library.

TIFF’s Canadian Retrospective focuses on late Quebec screenwriter, producer, poet and lawyer Perrault (1927-1999), known best for the documentaries he directed in the 1960s and ’70s. Perrault started his filmmaking career at Crawley Films, creating the concept for St. Lawrence North, a series of 13 docs that aired from 1960 to 1967 on CBC. His breakout came at the National Film Board with the doc Pour la suite du monde (The Moontrap), a realistic and stylistically unique portrayal of the Aboriginal Peoples of Ile-aux-Coudres, QC.

Perrault continued to sometimes call upon aboriginals as his subjects, becoming one of Canada’s direct cinema pioneers. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by l’Universite Laval in 1986 and the Albert Tessier Award by the Government of Quebec in 1994.

The 1972 feature The Rowdyman, starring Gordon Pinsent, who also wrote the script for director Peter Carter, is this year’s Open Vault selection. Pinsent based the story on his own experience growing up on the East Coast. The fictional biography was shot completely on location in Newfoundland, following the story of Will Cole, a boisterous and lively young man who ultimately finds himself alone in the world. Crawley Films’ founder F.R. Crawley produced.

New to TIFF this year is Directors Dish, offering an interactive blog on the TIFF website. Director Stefaniuk will post daily journal entries including text, photographs and video clips documenting his experience at the festival with his feature Phil the Alien, to be screened in the Canada First! program (see story, p. 33).

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest