TIFF Announces Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival

For the 15th time, Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival was announced today.  TIFF, who is most known as the Toronto International Film Festival, is actually a year round charitable film entity in Toronto and one of their annual achievements is showcasing the best in Canadian film. In order to be eligible for the festival, the film must be directed by a Canadian citizen or resident, Canada must be an official country of production, and the film must have been released commercially or played a major film festival in Canada in 2015.

Besides from the top ten films, TIFF also has some industry work shops planned including “Case Study: Creating the World of Room” with the producer, David Gross.  The film, which was a Canadian and Irish co-production, is currently making the awards rounds and won the People’s Choice award during the Toronto International Film Festival this year.  The festival, which runs in Toronto from January 8-17, will also feature a live on stage conversation with Kiefer Sutherland.

The top ten Canadian films, chosen by a panel of filmmakers, writers and programmers, are (in alphabetical order): Closet Monster (see our review here), The Demons, Les etres chers (Our Loved Ones), The Forbidden Room, Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr, HURT, Into the Forest (starring Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood), My Internship in Canada, Ninth Floor and The Sleeping Giant.

Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival also features a short programme.  During the lovely party TIFF put on after the announcement event, I spoke to Steven McCarthy (who I long ago interviewed for the film Picture Day, where Steven starred alongside Orphan Black‘s Tatiana Maslany) who seems pretty excited for his first directed short, o negative, to be shown on a larger platform.

This year the Canadian Top Ten is truly going nation wide with TIFF announcing more cities joining the festival.  Those in Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Halifax, as well as Toronto, will be able to catch the films.  As Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival stated, “What better way to escape winter’s icy grip than with a toasty lineup of special guests and homegrown films presented in eight cities across the country.”  New this year is a simulcast of Into the Forest which will take place in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver with a special Q&A with director Patricia Rozema.

Tickets for Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival go on sale December 9 for TIFF Members and December 16 for the public.  Check out www.tiff.net for more information.