Contemporary Canadian Cinema
To make this very special program, we invited curators, filmmakers, distributors, institutions, educators, and industry leaders to help us bring the best of contemporary Canadian cinema to Mexico. Given the remarkable array of award-winning and audience-grabbing films released in recent years, it wasn’t hard to fill our program, quickly reaching one film for each year of Canada’s federation. It was indeed difficult to fit so many outstanding films into a ten-day event. From fiction to documentary, three minutes to three hours, contemplative and poignant to hilarious and outrageous, yet always innovative, Canada has so much to offer to cinephiles. The results of our immersion into Canada’s newest and best films include:
• More than a dozen feature narratives that have earned honors and applause in the most important festivals.
• Four documentary features hand-picked by HotDocs to share the strongest work of their recent editions, as well as the festival’s own In the Name of All Canadians.
• Documentary features exploring Canada’s geography and the different facets of its identity.
• Four films presented by Calgary Underground Film Festival, including both classics and recent milestones in horror cinema.
• Eight short film programs representing the most important festivals, institutions, and projects for exhibition, production, and filmmaker training.
• Five Canada–Mexico co-productions, filmed in both countries and around the world, and spoken in eight different languages.
We’re ecstatic to share this stunning program and we have no doubt that GIFF audiences enjoy it as much as we did.