Local filmmaker Carl Bessai wants Canadian filmmakers to come out of the celluloid closet

When I interviewed local filmmaker Carl Bessai about the state of Canadian film, he had a lot to say. So much, I couldn't possibly fit it all into the article unfortunately.

He did point out that it'd be great if Canadian filmmakers weren't so ashamed to hide our Canadian-ness, as he points out neither the French nor the Irish are. And the Americans, he said, would never allow anyone to walk all over them. So why do we?

Complicating matters are films like Up the Yangtze, Partition, and Amal, which are set in foreign countries, but reflect the multicultural backgrounds of Canadian citizens. Unfortunately, like Eastern Promises, which is about the Russian mafia in London, they have zero (or very minimal) Canadian content.

That's why he thought Away From Her, set in Ontario and written by Alice Munro, was great in how Sarah Polley presented it as an unabashedly Canadian film.

(Hmm, do we need to have a Canadian Pride Parade? Maybe that's why Canadians don't really celebrate Canada Day all that much.)

Anyhow, Bessai, who recently completed the shooting of his latest feature, Mothers and Daughters, is such an ardent and stalwart defender of Canadian film and culture that he wrote an essay about it published at the Arts News Canada Web site.

Check it out and see what you think.