TIFF and MDFF strive to fill clay that remains behind due to decreasing opportunities for Canada’s Gen Z Filmmakers

For a solid piece of the early Aughts it was a good time to become a student film maker in Canada. Relatively speaking of course.

The arrival of digital cinema helped with the breaking of barriers, there was a real sense of excitement around emerging voices in -house, and, the most important of all, there was a true wealth of showcases for short films made by students.

From 2007 to 2016, the Air Canada Enroute Film Festival showed student shorts in theaters throughout the country and via the entertainment systems of the airline. The Canadian Film Center’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. Later Festival Ran ITSTOTTERT STUDENTTERS Rebranding It the Show young makerswho extended the entry criteria outside of film schools to every maker under the age of 26, and today runs as part of the next Golffestival in TIFF).

But while the opportunities evaporated, Canadian students did not stop making films. If there is anything, there are more student film makers in the country than ever before, thanks to an increase in academic programs and a more diverse culture that welcomes openly rising artists and encourages and encourages to contribute to the cinematic industry of Canada.

“I feel that students are being carefully cared for by the current landscape,” says filmmaker Kazik Radwanski (Matt and Mara” Anne at 13,000 ft.), who is also a professor in the Bachelor of Film and Media Production Program of Humber Polytechnic. “All these initiatives disappeared and left a huge gap.”

To this end, Radwanski and his producing partner Daniel Montgomery, in addition to TIFF, are an essential student film launch platform. The Tiff Lightbox will host on July 31 MDFF selects: Student Film Showcase 2025That will use the branding of Radwanski and Montgomery’s renowned production company and distributor MDFF to shed light on what is going on within the walls of film schools throughout the country. The screening presents 10 shorts with a series of styles (animation, hybrid documentary, dark comedy) and languages (French, Mandarin, Tagalog).

“There are fewer and fewer options for student film makers to get their work. You would think that the internet would help, but it is easy to get lost in the noise,” says Radwanski. “But the number 1 is that all 10 filmmakers attend the event, so the chance for them to just connect is crucial. For someone in BC to see what is going on with the student film community in Quebec. We want the Cinefiles to meet each other.”

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Radwanski knows the impact that such an event can have on the career of an artist. After all, it was in the TIFF Student Showcase of 2008 Princess Margaret Blvd., His thesis film at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) won the best film. The price was a storage of 16 mm to the more standardized (at the time) film of 35 mm.

“When we have submitted the shorts in the Berlinal Film Festival, we sent the programmers a DVD, they emailed the 35 mm print, forcing the selection committee to book a cinema to watch our small student film,” Radwanski recalls. “When we met the programmers in Berlin, they were very honest that the 35 mm print was a large part of why they programmed it.”

It was during the same edition of the Student Showcase where Radwanski and Montgomery also met the University of British Columbia student filmmaker Antoine Bourges, who would collaborate with MDFF on three of his shorts and two functions (including the 2022 drama Concrete valley).

“It was not only a big problem to present your film for an audience, but to meet others who had something to say about Cinema was huge,” Bourges recalls. “I immediately made contact with Kaz and then, even before we had to watch each other’s films. We just put on to each other, because we found that direct connection as young Cinefielen.”

For some of the filmmakers participating in this week’s event – whose selections will be assessed by directors Atom Egoyan, Miryam Charles and Ethan Godel – the chance is invaluable, especially in an industry that is not known for its convenience.

“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. It gives you a feeling of optimism,” says Concordia’s Arian Salarian, whose short Beginner follows a car theft. “The fact that someone like Kaz received his first kind of recognition through this event shows that there is a path.”

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For Radwanski, the showcase feels like a natural expansion of his evolving collaboration with TIFF-MDFF has been running a monthly screening series in the Lightbox cinemas of the organization for eight years, with the best in the Canadian and international film under the radar and a way to help a generation he lacks, supporting the support of supporting the support of supporting the support of supporting his Milnial support.

“I am fascinated by the current state of Gen Z filmmakers, because I made my first feature film when I was 25, and Gen Z artists are now over that age, but we have not yet seen a real Canadian gene Z -film,” says Radwanski, who hopes that the student show case will be an annual event again.

“I feel that we have to get a hurry with this guts of Gen Z -films. And I feel some guilt about it, because it felt like many people made sure that my generation filmmakers – Matt Johnson and me, Andrew Cividino – I have a chance. We were lucky, but I still felt lonely at the time. So my premonition is that today it still has to be lonely for young people. “

Some of the figures propagate this, including an apparent loss of Momentum for the Telefilm micro-budget program, that Johnson and his producing partner Matthew Miller launched as a talent to view in 2018, with the aim of financing 50 films every year. Last year’s talent to view cohort contained only 17 productions.

Humber Student Faith Montoya, whose selected short Mirror Follows the struggle of a student with gender identity, does not necessarily feel the loneliness that Radwanski perceives among its fellow students. But she feels the pressure to make contact with the public outside of school – to not only get your work, but to ensure that everyone reminds the name.

“Younger filmmakers, we have been told that it is such a competitive industry, and it can cause a lot of self -doubt in filmmakers about what their future will look like. You just have to know where to go and who you should talk,” says Montoya. “But I also feel that if you are passionate about it, the opportunities will come. And this is one of them.”

MDFF selects: Student Film Showcase 2025 Screens July 31 in the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto (tiff.net).