Canadian Cinema in the New Millennium
Join us for a series of films that celebrates dynamic and critically acclaimed Canadian filmmaking since the year 2000. This program is selected by University of Calgary professors Charles Tepperman and Lee Carruthers, coinciding with the release of their new book, Canadian Cinema in the New Millennium (McGill-Queen’s Press, 2023).
At the turn of the last millennium, Canadian cinema appeared at the apex of aesthetic and commercial transformation, fuelled by the emergence of new and critically acclaimed directors across three decades. Yet twenty years later, domestic filmmaking has sharply declined in visibility: the sense of celebrity once associated with independent directors has diminished, and new films receive less popular and critical attention.
This film series, like the book that launches it, answers to this situation, aiming to revitalize attention to Canadian cinema through a lively program of contemporary works. The films we have selected highlight the particularities of Canadian cinema now, tracing its eclectic energies across local and global forms. The series opens with Calgary’s most critically acclaimed animators, three-time Oscar nominees Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis; next is a masterpiece of the renouveau (Quebec New Wave) by Denis Côté; we then turn to an early work from celebrated director Denis Villeneuve; finally, the series concludes with a breakthrough coming-of-age story by Indigenous filmmaker Tracey Deer.
Come see what’s been happening in Canadian film since the millennium!
Co-presented with the University of Calgary Department of Communication, Media and Film.
Art by Lyndsay Wasko.
Partners:
Series Films
The Flying Sailor, with Artists' Talk by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
Directed by Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby
mAy 4, 2023
Join the Oscar-nominated and Palme-d’Or-winning filmmakers as they chart the creative process behind their unique collaboration. Illustrated with clips, images and anecdotes, they’ll discuss the inspiration and techniques behind their latest film, The Flying Sailor.
curling (2010)
Directed by Denis Côté
May 18, 2023
An iconoclastic voice in Canadian cinema, Denis Côté is renowned for his confrontational, eccentric and offbeat films. Set in rural Québec, Curling tells the story of an aloof father who insists that he and his daughter should never leave their home. But as his daughter's adolescence takes hold, this precarious state of affairs finds itself threatened by her desire for the outside world and the troubling secrets of their shared past.
Maelström (2000)
DIRECTED by Denis Villeneuve
june 1, 2023
An unconventional early work in the filmography of the increasingly mainstream filmmaker, Denis Villeneuve.Maelström explores a fascination with car crashes, the search for connection, and confounding imagery through the lens of black comedy. Narrated by a talking fish in the process of being butchered, a woman looks to discover more about the life of a man whose death she feels responsible for after a car crash.
beanS (2020)
Directed by Tracey Deer
june 15, 2022
In 1990, violence broke out between the Kanien’kehà:ka people and the town of Oka over a land dispute. Filmmaker Tracey Deer, who hails from Kahnawà:ke and lived through the crisis in her youth, tells the story through the eyes of "Beans", a preteen girl living in Kahnawà:ke who is swept up in the events around her.
