Patricia Clarkson in Cairo Time (top); Joel Bissonnette, Adam Scott in Passenger Side (middle, upper); Danse Macabre by Pedro Pires (middle, lower); Five Hole: Tales of Hockey Erotica by Cam Christiansen (bottom)
The Toronto Film Festival has announced the lists of the top 10 Canadian features and shorts of 2009. Among the selected features are Denis Côté's Carcasses, Xavier Dolan's I Killed My Mother, and Bernard Émond's The Legacy. Shorts include Pedro Pires' Danse Macabre, Jamie Travis' The Armoire, and Kazik Radwanski's Out in that Deep Blue Sea.
Topics include hockey's behind-the-scenes homoerotic moments to the sound of the Rheostatics (Five Hole: Tales of Hockey Erotica); an adulterous romance in Egypt (Cairo Time); the erratic movements of a corpse (Danse Macabre); a young gay man's problems with his mother (I Killed My Mother); two estranged brothers on a road trip through the streets and freeways of Los Angeles (Passenger Side); and a teenager who believes himself to be Leon Trotsky reincarnated.
The list of top ten features was compiled by a group of 10 filmmakers, journalists, programmers, and film industry members, among them director Jerry Ciccoritti, author Tom McSorley, filmmaker Ingrid Veninger, and producer Nicole Robert. Five people, including filmmaker Shane Belcourt and Toronto festival CEO Michèle Maheux, chose the top ten short films.
Public screenings of the twenty films, featuring Q&A sessions with the filmmakers, will be held between Jan. 14-21, 2010, at the Toronto Film Festival's Cinematheque.
As per its website, "Canada’s Top Ten celebrates and promotes contemporary Canadian cinema and is intended to raise public awareness of Canadian achievements in film. Two national panels of filmmakers, programmers, journalists and industry professionals vote on the best Canadian feature and short films of the year. Each film selected as part of Canada's Top Ten must have either premiered at a major Canadian film festival or had a commercial theatrical release in Canada within the calendar year. Canada’s Top Ten is published alphabetically and without any preferential order."