Our nation’s filmmakers are up for “everything possible”, contends Canadian Images programmer Terry McEvoy.

Quick. What's your idea of a Canadian movie? No igloo or Mountie jokes, please–those are strictly for ignorant foreigners. Your average north-of-the-border filmgoer may have a more accurate expectation of homegrown product: good-for-you dramas about troubled rural families. Such medicine will be sweetened occasionally by stylized kink fests, determined to prove just how different they are–yes, we're looking at you, David Cronenberg–but shouldn't they pay us to see most of this stuff?

People who actually keep up with the Canuck fare that hits the festival circuit from year to year, however, have very different impressions. The range–in both quality and content–has never been wider than in this year's Vancouver International Film Festival, starting today (September 27) and running to October 12.

Terry McEvoy, in his second year as head programmer of the fest's Canadian Images series, doesn't think the current batch–chosen from more than 600 feature and short submissions–is a fluke. "What I notice, when I look at the new catalogue," he says, on the line from his West Side home, "is that it's as widespread in scope as the whole book. The Canadian films give you a microcosm of the overall picture."

The Ottawa-born McEvoy has spent many years in the trenches, writing, producing, and directing nonfiction television shows for networks large and small. He has been a juror for the Genie and Gemini awards, and is vice-chair for Western Canada of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, where he watches trends in funding, filmmaking, and distribution.

"What we're seeing now is a general maturation of the industry," he insists. "You have everything possible now, from intimate regional stories to a number of films made outside the country. Up the Yangtze [screening September 30 and October 7], for example, just happens to be made by a Canadian, but it was shot entirely in China."

On the other hand, nothing could be more Canadian than The Stone Angel (September 28 and 29, October 9), a faithful adaptation of the canonical Margaret Laurence novel, with Ellen Burstyn as an old Manitoban lost in memories of her stifling small-town life.

McEvoy also points to Elijah (October 5 and 8) as a uniquely regional tale, since it hinges on the filibuster, by First Nations MP Elijah Harper, that sank the Meech Lake Accord. "Sure, it's about an obscure procedural detail, but it's ultimately about human integrity, not bowing or kowtowing," he adds.

Also extremely Canadian is Robert Lantos, the Hungarian-born founder of domestic giant Alliance, who produced the new Fugitive Pieces (September 29 and 30). Directed by Jeremy Podeswa, a thoughtful stylist who made his name handling U.S. shows such as The L Word and Six Feet Under, the movie (based on the book by Ontario poet Anne Michaels) follows a Polish orphan sheltered by a Greek archaeologist in Toronto after the Second World War.

This year's Quebec entries are mostly intimate regional tales, and then there's writer-director Guy Maddin off in his own world in My Winnipeg (October 1, 3, and 11), but more accessible than usual. "Some films touch on much broader subjects. Take Young People Fucking [October 5 and 9]," the programmer says with a chuckle. "Subjects don't get much broader than that."

Quite a few Canadians are now famous enough to float an indie film on name value, as with Ed veteran Tom Cavanagh starring in the smart gay comedy Breakfast With Scot (October 3, 4, and 11), and Carrie-Anne Moss anchoring Carl Bessai's Crash-esque Normal (October 2 and 10).

You'd think that Saul Rubinek's success in the United States would mean he could get a low-budget movie made with just a few phone calls. But despite his high-profile work on films such as Unforgiven and Jet Li's War, not to mention top sitcoms like Curb Your Enthusiasm and Frasier, it took him about seven years to put the comic Cruel But Necessary (October 11 and 12) on festival rounds. The film's basic material was a series of sharply amusing monologues by oddly charismatic Wendel Meldrum, who also moved to Los Angeles for a fitfully successful career on American TV. She will long be remembered as the low-talking clothes designer on Seinfeld–the one who famously forced Jerry to wear the puffy pirate shirt for a visit with Johnny Carson.

Rubinek had directed a couple of TV movies plus a documentary, So Many Miracles, about his parents' Holocaust survival, and Jerry and Tom, with Joe Mantegna and Sam Rockwell as squabbling hit men–a dark comedy that wasn't widely distributed but drew a cult following. Still, the busy player had to work surprisingly hard to raise funds to shoot a simple story about a suburban housewife who starts videotaping daily life after her long-time marriage breaks up. The kicker to the piece would be that Meldrum's ex-husband and son–Mark and Luke Humphrey, respectively–would actually play her ditsy character's ex-husband and son.

"We spent about a year and a half turning those monologues into something like a story," says Rubinek, calling from his home near Los Angeles. "None of this is really about her, but it does relate to things in her family background. So we figured, why not use members of her actual family?"

Despite having arrived in this world in other places, Meldrum (Italy, with a diplomat father) and Rubinek (in a German refugee camp) are proud Canadians. The elder Humphrey was born in Vancouver, although their son, now 20, is a lifelong Californian and the film was shot entirely in their SoCal home and environs. So the movie certainly falls through the cracks when it comes to national identity.

"We went to every possible funding source, both in L.A. and up north," Rubinek recalls, "but the concept was just too different, I guess, to really take hold. And we didn't think we could talk the Canadian government into helping."

Rubinek and his producer wife, Elinor Reid, did get at least one offer to bump the project up to a bigger-budget vehicle, but they worried that it would lose its homemade flavour; Cruel is supposed to be the simple musings of a philosophical blabbermouth with a consumer-grade camera.

Consequently, the filmmakers used old-school methods–credit cards and calling in favours–and shot the film weekends and evenings for another 18 months. They then tinkered with editing for another few years, even reshooting key scenes along the way. With no money for copyright clearance, Rubinek ended up recording a couple of Erik Satie piano pieces for the soundtrack, in time for the polished–and extremely funny–movie to play here on the last two days of the festival.

If Cruel is Canada in drag, Vancouver plays Chicago in the pulpy thriller Shattered (September 29 and October 1) and Shanghai in They Wait (October 7 and 10), which focuses partially on northerners in 1940s China. John Zaritsky's The Suicide Tourist (October 10 and 11) follows a dying man to Switzerland. David Paperny's Confessions of an Innocent Man (October 2, 5, and 12) was shot here and in the U.K., but takes place mostly in Saudi Arabia. Other titles take place here but feature foreign-born talent, like The Stone Angel, and the Halifax-made Just Buried (October 3 and 4), which stars Aussie up-and-comer Rose Byrne.

The industry is much more complicated than it was back in 1995, when Mort Ransen had to push hard for Telefilm Canada and other funders to allow him to star Helena Bonham Carter in the trailblazing Margaret's Museum. The dreaded "points system" has relaxed since then, and the filmmakers themselves are far more imaginative about what constitutes an indigenous story. Overall, McEvoy figures that the flavour of Canadian culture is growing less medicinal all the time.

"Last year, we had Fido and Congorama, which could have been Canadian or not Canadian," he says. "We also had Everything's Gone Green, which was probably the most Vancouver movie I've ever seen. I have been watching a rising tide for a long time now. The creative side is nothing but encouraging. Of course, the business part is still pretty challenging."

Now he sounds appropriately Canadian.