TORONTO, August 16, 2000 -- Canadian movies have come a long way since 1967, when the Canadian Film Development Corporation was founded to help feed a fledgling feature film industry. But where does it stand now amidst a highly globalized film-television-digital entertainment industry - and where is it headed?

Film Professor Seth Feldman, this year's Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies at York University, will ask these kinds of questions as he co-ordinates a year-long series of events under the heading, The Triumph of Canadian Cinema. The project, run out of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University, will include presentations by key Canadian film and television writers, directors, producers, columnists and critics in a series of four panels complemented by public screenings of key work by such remarkable filmmakers as Norman Jewison and Deepa Mehta, both of whom are personally participating in the series.

Feldman, a former Dean of Fine Arts, a much-published writer on Canadian cinema and television, and a founder and past President of the Film Studies Association of Canada, is the first to acknowledge that ‘Triumph' is not the first word leaping to the lips of those describing the history of film in Canada.

"Despite the booming number of productions, most people working in the Canadian industry are dependent upon either co-productions or entirely foreign (usually American) films and television shows shooting in Canada," says Feldman. "The best films by Canadians about subjects that interest Canadians are often television programs or documentaries, animations or other categories whose awards are given out early on Oscar night. Canadian feature films (shown at a pitifully small number of theatres) are generally gone before the candy bars in the kiosks. International festivals may have given the nod to some of those films, but their Canadian stars and directors are generally unknown to anyone other than the art house film crowd," he says.

Yet Feldman's outlook on the state and status of Canadian cinema is, in the face of Canadian filmmakers and film critics' decades-long lament, optimistic.

"'Canadianization' is a term used around the world to describe complete capitulation in the face of American cultural hegemony. But I'm not so sure that is fair or accurate. I think that, like other colonized peoples, Canadian filmmakers have found a way to develop their own voices despite and even within the imperial system. This country contributes, and will continue to contribute, work of genuine worth to the international film and television community," he says.

Feldman, who is the author of 20 documentaries for CBC radio's IDEAS as well as a frequent radio and television commentator on the arts, believes it is time to reorient the consideration of Canadian cinema to acknowledge its successes. There were, he points out, 114 Canadian feature films submitted to this year's Toronto International Film Festival -- a figure unimaginable in 1967.

"We have done well not by Hollywood's standards - after all, there is only one Hollywood - but by standards of our own. Despite our being strategically positioned so far from heaven and so close to the United States, we have provided a milieu in which a moderate number of talents can say something worth seeing and hearing," he says. "I believe the technologies that have been thrust upon us have yielded another definition of Canadianization, an understanding of cultural mechanics that has enabled the production of relevant and occasionally brilliant work."

The Triumph of Canadian Cinema 2000-2001 runs from September to March 2001:

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 3 p.m.: Can I Make the Films I Want to Make in Canada Today?
(Toronto International Film Festival, Japan Foundation Auditorium, 131 Bloor St. West, The Colonnade, Suite 213)

Featuring: Gary Burns ("Waydowntown"); Don McKellar ("Last Night"); Lynne Stopkewich ("Suspicious River"); Denis Villeneuve ("Maelstrom"); Anne Wheeler ("Marine Life"). With moderator Niv Fichman of Rhombus Media. Five of Canada's hottest directors in a panel with one of its most innovative producers tackle the question of whether we have a film culture in Canada.

Thursday, Sept. 21, 4 p.m.: Eat Popcorn, Laugh and Cry
(Film Department Sound Stage, Centre for Film and Theatre, York University)
The Launch: Film Clips, People, Media, Party

Friday, Oct. 13 to Friday, Oct. 20: They Call Me Mr. Jewison
A retrospective of ten Norman Jewison films with Mr. Jewison in attendance.
Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor St. W. (at Bathurst); $7 for non-members; $4 for members and York students:

Friday, Oct. 13, 7 p.m.: The Hurricane (with Jewison present)
Saturday, Oct. 14, 7 p.m.: Moonstruck
Sunday, Oct. 15, 1 p.m.: In the Heat of the Night; 3 p.m.: A Soldier's Story; 7 p.m.: Fiddler on the Roof
Monday, Oct. 16, 7 p.m.: The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming
Tuesday, Oct. 17, 7 p.m.: The Thomas Crown Affair
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 7 p.m.: The Cincinnati Kid
Thursday, Oct. 19, 7 p.m.: Agnes of God
Friday, Oct. 20, 7 p.m.: And Justice for All

Wednesday, Oct. 18, 7 p.m.: Television; The Canadian Films We Get to See
(Nat Taylor Cinema, Ross Building, York University)

Featuring: John Doyle (TV Critic, Globe and Mail); Ken Finkleman ("The Newsroom"); Alyson Feltes ("Traders"). Canada's most quoted television critic and two of Canadian television's most creative artists talk about the medium as Canada's real cinema.

Tuesday, Nov. 21, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.: Canadian Documentary, The Persistent Charm of Our Cinema
(Royal Ontario Museum Theatre)

Featuring: Rudy Buttignol (filmmaker, TV0 Executive); Ann Medina (Journalist); Nettie Wild ("A Place Called Chiapas"); Gail Singer ("You Can't Beat a Woman!"). A day-long event in which all four of our guests present their pick of the best and most influential Canadian documentaries.

Wednesday, Jan. 24: Deepa Mehta; A Canadian in India, The Wendy Michener Lecture
(Nat Taylor Cinema, Ross Building, York University)
Screening of Fire (2 p.m.), Earth (4 p.m.) and Presentation by Deepa Mehta (7:30 p.m.)
Having distinguished herself as a Canadian filmmaker, Deepa Mehta is now finishing the third work in her hugely important and highly controversial trilogy on Indian life.

Thursday, Feb. 1, Noon: Sid Adilman on Canadian Film
(York University Bookstore)
Canada's most respected entertainment columnist, the Toronto Star's Sid Adilman, reflects upon the rises and falls of our national cinema.

Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2 p.m.: Canadian Films, Subsidized or What?
(Senate Chamber, Ross Building, York University)
Moderator: Joyce Zemans (Co-Chair, Arts and Media Administration Program, Schulich School of Business)
Prof. Zemans asks the tough questions of a panel of Canadian film producers and policy makers.

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2 p.m.: Canadian Movies, Eh?
(Nat Taylor Cinema, Ross Building, York University)
Robarts Chair Paper: Seth Feldman

March: (W)rap Party
Murat Akser (York Film & Video)
Kiranmayi Indraganti (York Film & Video)
The Robarts Crew and York faculty and students working on Canadian Cinema present their closing thoughts.

Since the establishment of the Centre in 1984, the Robarts Chair has been a primary focus of its research activities, seminars and colloquia. This distinguished position is appointed on an annual basis, thus the research focus of the Centre shifts annually, reflecting the interests and projects of the successive chairs. The Robarts Chair is typically a senior scholar well-connected in the community who can make a substantial impact on it through developing awareness of new approaches to his/her field of expertise. Last year's Chair was writer and York prof. Susan Swan, creator of The Millennial Wisdom Symposium, a series of public events and readings on "Making Up the Past: The Archeology of Fiction." Over the year, novelists, archeologists and historians examined how the past was recreated by their disciplines, and explored such questions as who owns the past and where our sense of history is derived.

The Director of the Robarts Centre is Prof. Daniel Drache.

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For more information, view the full program for Triumph for Canadian Cinema at www.robarts.yorku.ca/seminars/triumphprogram.htm, or contact the following:

Prof. Seth Feldman
Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 77553
sfeldman@yorku.ca

Sine MacKinnon
Director of Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22087
sinem@yorku.ca
YU/080/00