Quebec vs. the World: Canada’s Sovereign Film Industry By: Max von Schilling Although it’s easy to fall into the fruitless trap of recognizing the success of a filmmaker solely through their awards, there’s a reason for it. The awards industry is so large because the ability to say “Academy-Award Winner” next to a film brings money, prestige, and, more often than not, guaranteed future work. It’s why Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand’s 2003 Best Foreign Film win for his film The Barbarian Invasions was such a major moment for him and his country’s film industry.  Nominated two times before this, for […]

The Oka Crisis and Modern Indigenous Perspectives on Canadian Screens By Max von Schilling The history of Indigenous cinema in Canada is, like all things to do with Aboriginal people in this country, shockingly recent. Even using the NFB’s Challenge for Change initiative in 1968 as a starting point, there were few actual feature films made and released in this era about their perspectives, especially in a sympathetic view. Indigenous filmmakers were simply not given the resources or opportunities to tell their stories prior to the modern era, often used for their iconography and to fulfill a “sage mentor” position […]

Sarah Polley and the Elusivity of the Canadian Auteur By Max von Schilling *CW: This article contains mentions of a film plot that includes sexual abuse*  Much like the rest of the world, Canada has long been starved of strong Female voices in its film industry, no doubt because of the gatekeepers in place that have long kept them out. There are, of course, exceptions, such as Deepa Mehta or Mireille Dansereau, but few of these directors have been widely recognized on a global scale as Sarah Polley. Beginning her career as a child actor, she was launched to stardom […]