Canadian films made a big splash at Sundance, here's the rundown of how Canucks faired in Utah...

Written By Ian Gregg

The Sundance Film Festival had more than a few maple leaves rustling through its roster this year, with a couple taking home some well-deserved recognition. Canadian gems Indie Game: The Movie, China Heavyweight and Payback made up 25 per cent of Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition. Fictional features included Monsieur Lazhar and For a Good Time, Call …, two disparate films that found their audiences nonetheless. The Festival’s New Frontier selection includes an interactive installation, which moseyed its way into the festival and out of hibernation, and a beastly observational piece. Short films, meanwhile, had places in both International Narrative, and New frontier categories.

The documentaries lit up the screen this year with, Indie Game: The Movie taking home the World Cinema Documentary Editing prize. James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot made this project in Winnipeg, Manitoba then took it all the way to Utah. HBO has since taken interest and wants to adapt the film for TV audiences, so this directing duo doesn’t regret the journey to Sundance in the least.

Jennifer Baichwal provided stiff competition for the other docs with her illustration of Margaret Atwood’s lecture, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. The National Film Board of Canada will provide distribution so the film will likely be seen in limited release throughout Canda, but don’t expect it to take over the megaplex. Creative and character driven, China Heavyweight tore the shroud off China’s boxing culture. Yung Chang’s long-form doc didn’t disappoint as he came in for round two at Sundance after his previous work, Up the Yangtze. Cats & Docs, a French distribution company, will hopefully take this film far and wide as all three feature length Canadian docs sold out every single night they screened at the festival.

The narrative entries arrived with fanfare as well. Phillipe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar, which recently received an Oscar nod for Best Foreign Language Film, enjoyed attention throughout the festival in its “Spotlight” position. EOne Films Canada and Christal Films Distribution have both felt the need to disseminate this piece across the country, so we could see this one near us as of right now. Finding funds independent of the NFBC, Jamie Travis’s For a Good Time, Call … did not receive lavish attention but still stood out as a bold and original laugh-out-loud comedy worth watching, but it did find distribution in the U.S. with Focus Features.

The New Frontier category at Sundance contains films that push the envelope in every direction, many of these features challenge the labels that genres try to pin on them. The two Canadian features in the program were Bestiaire, and Bear 71. Denis Côté found that Quebec’s Parc Safari provided the best backdrop for Bestiaire’s observation on both human and animal behavior. Distributed through Funfilm, select theatres in Canada should pick up this project soon as it heads to the Berlin International Film Festival in a few days. Interactive and ongoing, Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison follow a bear in Banff National Park while shedding light on the way humans interact with wildlife in the digital age. Audience members can become part of the bear’s virtual forest through use of smart phones and computers. No distribution deals are possible through traditional means, but the doc is accessible at http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71.

Two short films also made their way down from the North. Yan Giroux’s Surveillant depicts urban park life while using people he found on set during the shooting. The Conquerors fits into the New Frontier category with surreal reflections of colonialism brought to life by Tibor Banoczki and Sarolta Szabo. A wild ride to say the least.

Coming away from the festival with hope and hype is Leone Stars. The Canada-Sierra Leone team was invited to the festival as members of the Documentary Fellowship Program and received a development grant from the Sundance organization. The healing power of soccer won over the jury and we now look forward to seeing the film on the big screen next year.

Written by :

Gregg