Alex Boya is one of three Canadian filmmakers whose work is competing in Cannes’ sidebar program Directors’ Fortnight.STEPHAN BALLARD/Supplied
On the opening day of the Cannes Film Festival, the red-and-white Canada Pavilion, located on the calm and pristine shores of the French Riviera, is a quiet oasis of laptop typing and polite networking. Especially contrasted with the boom-boom-boom thud of the American Pavilion a few tents down, where the atmosphere was thick with a smiley but nervy “Do I know you?” attitude.
The parallel moods on the Croisette underlined Canada’s here-but-not-in-your-face presence at the 78th edition of the world’s most prestigious film festival. After several recent editions of Cannes in which Canadian cinema’s more name-brand auteurs stood tall – think of last year’s festival featuring legacy-defining work from David Cronenberg (The Shrouds) and Guy Maddin (Rumours) – this year’s Canadian contingent offers a quieter, more sneak-up-on-you energy from artists either emerging or long on the cusp.
Of the three Canadian filmmakers whose work is competing in the festival’s sidebar program Directors’ Fortnight – Anne Émond’s doom-tinged romcom Amour Apocalypse (Peak Everything), Felix Dufour-Laperrière’s intense feature-length cartoon Le Mort n’existe pas (Death Does Not Exist), and Alex Boya‘s darkly whimsical animated short titled Bread Will Walk – each director is a Cannes newbie.
“I think it’s a good sign for Canadian cinema if filmmakers are being invited to Cannes for the first or second time fairly early in their careers,” says Toronto International Film Festival chief executive Cameron Bailey, who is in town this week not only scoping out films for this fall’s 50th edition of TIFF, but laying the groundwork for the launch of Toronto’s official content market in 2026. “It’s always great when there’s a Cronenberg or an Egoyan, but if there’s only that, then that’s a bad sign for Canadian filmmakers.”
Quebecois animator Dufour-Laperrière knows well that he’s not carrying the imprimatur of a Denis Villeneuve or Denys Arcand – and he wouldn’t expect to, working in the field of adult-skewing animation. Which makes the invitation to debut his work at Cannes all the more important to him, and those of his fellow Canadian artists.
“It’s breaking the boundaries. There’s no public audience for adult animation, it doesn’t exist. So it’s a real pleasure to screen an adult animated feature in a general cinema context,” says the filmmaker, who began working on Death Does Not Exist, which follows the shattered life of a political activist, more than a decade ago. “I’m joyful about having the opportunity to share this kind of work with moviegoers in a festival that permits it to stand out.”
Canadian filmmaker Dominic Desjardins is in Cannes for the first time with his impressively soul-crushing virtual-reality project The Dollhouse.Supplied
Canadian filmmaker Dominic Desjardins, who is also in Cannes for the first time with his impressively soul-crushing virtual-reality project The Dollhouse (a co-production with Luxembourg), possesses a more uniquely un-Canadian sense of unbridled enthusiasm.
“Being in Cannes is huge! It’s the dream, you know?” says the filmmaker, who spent years working on the VR project out of his small Toronto office with his wife, producer Rayne Zukerman. “This is a festival for creators who are not working for commercial purposes, but who just feel a powerful drive to bring a story into the world. Having a venue like Cannes, and being invited there, is saying that there’s not just a market for this, but a need in the cultural landscape.”
Although Canadian filmmakers have a wealth of opportunities to showcase their work at home, the international connections that a Cannes premiere can deliver are unparalleled.
“The mission is to reach out to Canadians, but also the world. And on that level, you can make so many connections once the same content is seen from the angle of an international audience,” says Bread Will Walk director Boya, whose short neatly subverts the zombie genre and features the voice of Jay Baruchel. “You get to develop a relationship to your work in a more cubistic way – you can look at it from different angles and learn from how it’s been viewed by audiences from one culture to the next.”
Naturally, all of the Canadian titles at Cannes are premiering under the shadow of tariffs and other cultural politics seeping out of the United States – still the dominant force both in the global entertainment industry and this year’s festival (up to and including the American Pavilion’s soundtrack). But for the Canadian talent on hand, the tension might in fact be healthy.
“As an artist, we create environments of exchange in new terms,” says Boya. “I think there are two options that you can take: be responsive to the backdrop of those dynamics, or nurture the things that you’re fostering, the forums that you’re trying to build as an artist, and it will just naturally co-exist with the overarching zeitgeist.
“These tectonic plates, they’ll always be clashing – but you’re building something that floats on its own gravitational pull. That’s the value of creators connecting with audiences and other creators. Focus on the storytelling.”
