Over the years, many of the opportunities available to young Canadian filmmakers to showcase their work have evaporated.Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press
For a solid stretch of the early aughts, it was a great time to be a student filmmaker in Canada. Relatively speaking, of course.
The advent of digital cinema helped break down barriers, there was a genuine sense of excitement surrounding emerging homegrown voices, and, most important of all, there was a veritable wealth of showcases for student-made short films.
From 2007 through 2016, the Air Canada enRoute Film Festival screened student shorts in theatres across the country as well as via the airline’s in-flight entertainment systems. The Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival – at one point the largest short-film festival in North America – featured public screenings, master classes and industry-focused panels until it ceased operations in 2013. And the Toronto International Film Festival ran its Student Showcase event from 2004 through 2013 (later rebranding it the Young Creators Showcase, which expanded the submissions criteria beyond film schools to any creator under the age of 26, and today runs as part of TIFF’s Next Wave festival).
But while the opportunities evaporated, Canadian students didn’t stop making films. If anything, there are more student filmmakers in the country than ever before, thanks to an increase in academic programs and a more diverse culture that openly welcomes and encourages emerging artists to contribute to Canada’s cinematic industry.
“I feel like students are hugely underserved by the current landscape,” says filmmaker Kazik Radwanski (Matt and Mara, Anne at 13,000 Ft.), who is also a professor in Humber Polytechnic’s bachelor of film and media production program. “All of these initiatives disappeared, leaving a massive gap.”
To that end, Radwanski and his producing partner Daniel Montgomery are, alongside TIFF, resurrecting an essential student-film launching pad. On July 31, the TIFF Lightbox will host MDFF Selects: Student Film Showcase 2025, which will use the branding of Radwanski and Montgomery’s renowned production company and distributor MDFF to shine a light on what’s going on inside the walls of film schools across the country. The screening will present 10 shorts showcasing a range of styles (animation, hybrid documentary, dark comedy) and languages (French, Mandarin, Tagalog).
“There are fewer and fewer opportunities for student filmmakers to get their work out there. You would think the internet would help, but it’s easy to get lost in the noise,” Radwanski says. “But the No. 1 thing is that all 10 of the filmmakers are attending the event, so the opportunity for them to just connect is crucial. For someone in B.C. to see what’s going on with the student-film community in Quebec. We want the cinephiles to meet each other.”
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Radwanski knows the impact that such an event can have on an artist’s career. After all, it was at the 2008 TIFF Student Showcase where Princess Margaret Blvd., his thesis film at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University), won best film. The prize was a blow-up from 16mm to the more standardized (at the time) 35mm film.
“When we submitted the short to the Berlinale film festival, instead of sending the programmers a DVD we mailed them the 35mm print, forcing the selection committee to book a cinema to view our little student film,” Radwanski recalls. “When we met the programmers in Berlin, they were very honest that the 35mm print was a big part of why they programmed it.”
It was during that same edition of the Student Showcase where Radwanski and Montgomery also met University of British Columbia student filmmaker Antoine Bourges, who would go on to collaborate with MDFF on three of his shorts and two features (including the acclaimed 2022 drama Concrete Valley).
“It was not only a huge deal to present your film in front of an audience, but to meet others who had something to say about cinema was huge,” Bourges recalls. “I immediately connected with Kaz and Dan, even before we got to watch each other’s films. We just gravitated toward each other, because we found that instant connection as young cinephiles.”
For some of the filmmakers participating in this week’s event – whose selections will be judged by directors Atom Egoyan, Miryam Charles and Ethan Godel – the opportunity is invaluable, especially in an industry that isn’t renowned for its ease of entry.
“The festival scene has only become more difficult to navigate, and so few of them even have student categories, so this is something that actually gives voice and recognition to filmmakers who are just starting out. It gives you a sense of optimism,” says Concordia’s Arian Salarian, whose short Novice follows a car theft. “The fact that someone like Kaz got his first kind of recognition through this event shows that there’s a pathway.”
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For Radwanski, the showcase feels like both a natural extension of his evolving partnership with TIFF – MDFF has been running a monthly screening series inside the organization’s Lightbox cinemas for eight years now, showcasing the best in under-the-radar Canadian and international film – and a way to help a generation that he feels lacks the support his millennial cohort received.
“I’m fascinated by the current state of Gen Z filmmakers, because I made my first feature when I was 25, and Gen Z artists are about that age now, but we haven’t seen a true Canadian Gen Z film break through yet,” says Radwanski, who hopes the Student Showcase will once again become an annual event.
“I feel we should be brimming over with this gush of Gen Z films. And I feel some guilt about that, because it felt like a lot of people made sure that filmmakers from my generation – Matt Johnson and I, Andrew Cividino – got a shot. We were lucky, but I still felt lonely back then. So my hunch is that it must feel even more lonely for young people today.”
Some of the numbers bear this out, including a seeming loss of momentum for Telefilm’s micro-budget program, which Johnson and his producing partner Matthew Miller relaunched as Talent to Watch in 2018, with the goal of financing 50 movies every year. Last year’s Talent to Watch cohort featured just 17 productions.
Humber student Faith Montoya, whose selected short Mirror follows a student’s struggle with gender identity, doesn’t necessarily feel the loneliness that Radwanski observes among her fellow students. But she does feel the pressure to connect with audiences outside school – to not only get your work out there, but to make sure that everyone remembers the name behind it.
“Younger filmmakers, we’re told that it’s such a competitive industry, and it can cause a lot of self-doubt in filmmakers as to what their future is going to look like. You just have to know where to go and who to talk to,” Montoya says. “But I also feel that if you’re passionate about it, the opportunities will come. And this is one of them.”
MDFF Selects: Student Film Showcase 2025 screens July 31 at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto (tiff.net).
