Wanna see a bunch of smart people talking about great movies?

Starting Saturday (July 22), the 11-week CBC series The Filmmakers assembles directors, critics, and an array of cultural commentators to provide a detailed examination of a classic Canadian film, kicking off this week with Atom Egoyan’s 1997 breakthrough, The Sweet Hereafter.

Egoyan himself is on hand for a brief discussion and masterclass session with host Johanna Schneller, while critic Geoff Pevere, VIFF programmer (and Straight contributor) Adam Cook, and actor Stephanie Morgenstern assess, among other matters, the film’s immense international impact. Thirty-minutes later, a screening of the The Sweet Hereafter reminds us of just how good it is.

“These are timeless movies,” says Schneller, calling the Straight from Toronto. “There’s nothing dated about them. They’re as good as anything you’ll see anywhere in the world.”

We’re not inclined to argue. After Egoyan’s feature, the lineup of titles continues next Saturday (July 29) with Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, followed in the remaining weeks by Last Night, Incendies, Double Happiness, Rebelle, I Killed My Mother, Water, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), Manufactured Landscapes, and, finally, on September 30, Director X’s 2015 debut Across the Line.

As Schneller notes, it’s a pretty robust attempt by the CBC to “curate a Canadian canon.”

“I think what Canadian means to them isn’t one blanket thing,” she says of the 10 filmmakers interviewed for the series. (Despite his best efforts, Incendies director Denis Villeneuve was forced to decline because he was too busy “cutting a little film called Blade Runner.”)

“When I first moved here in 1987, there was a lot of ‘What is Canada?’” continues the US-born journalist. “And I feel like this series kind of puts the stamp on the fact that we’ve moved past that. Canada is a million different things. It’s almost tautological. It’s Canadian because it’s Canadian.”

Indeed, if The Filmmakers is characterized by anything, it’s diversity, which Schneller notes is reflected in show’s the wide-ranging panel discussions.

For its presentation of Double Happiness on August 19, The Filmmakers rounds up (former Vancouverite) Amil Niazi , cléo founder Kiva Reardon, and actor Samantha Wan to appraise the lasting resonance of Mina Shum’s Vancouver-made indie hit, now, remarkably, well over 20-years-old.

“They all said it’s absolutely still relevant to their experiences of coming from immigrant families,” says Schneller, adding that she was thrilled to host conversations about appropriation and the Indigenous experience for the screenings of Rebelle (August 26) and Atanarjuat (September 16).

On the lighter side, Don McKellar started fussing with Schellener’s hair and adjusted some camera angles for his interview about Last Night (August 5)—“He became very aware that his ankles were going to be on camera cause he wasn’t wearing socks,” she says, with a chuckle. “You could not take the director out of the McKellar”—while Sook-Yin Lee, David Suzuki, and actor Connor Jessup are among those turning up for what Schneller describes as “nice, deep, contextual conversations” in the coming weeks.

If only it didn’t end after 11 episodes! "From your mouth the God’s ear,” remarks the host. “If we do a second season, I hope Patricia Rozema’s in there.”