The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) is constantly growing, but as photo subjects with 14 fingers and a range of factual fallacies can attest, it has its limits. With National Canadian Film Day coming up on April 17, the team at Reel Canada wants to show what AI can’t do by highlighting the best in Canadian cinema.
Reel Canada, a charitable organization promoting Canadian film, has hosted CanFilmDay for just over a decade. This year’s event offers more than 1,000 local film screenings across Canada, including showings in Bracebridge, Burk’s Falls and Barrie. Sharon Corder, artistic director at Reel Canada, selects a theme each year with the goal of capturing the current moment in film and media. Between the recent strikes from actors, writers and other professionals as well as the growing influence of AI in general, she felt it was the perfect chance to showcase all that is human.
“Every day you can go to some new website and tell it to show you a scene with a woman walking down the street in Paris and suddenly, AI creates that,” said Jack Blum, executive director of Reel Canada. “It’s pretty unnerving, and [Sharon] just thought, let’s look at the films that are so unique, so humane, so original, so emotional, that AI is just never going to get there and remind ourselves of the importance of telling these kinds of stories to one another.”
Corder and her team go through hundreds of films each year to fill the festival, looking at films from about 1970 to the present. They aim to represent the diversity in Canada, which means including a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, languages, regions and cultures.
The various events, screenings and at-home viewing options are aimed at helping people experience something that brings them closer to their neighbours and the country they live in, Blum said. All of the films are good and worthy of attention, but for those who want to narrow down their selection, it’s as easy as looking up local events at CanFilmDay.ca.
“In Burk’s Falls, the library there is showing Defendor, a really interesting take on a superhero movie that’s not like any other superhero movie, and you have to see it to believe me, but it’s very human and lovely,” Blum said. “Or in Bracebridge, that library is having a screening of The Grizzlies, a fantastic film set in the north.”
For those who can’t make it in person, CanFilmDay offers a few ways to watch at home. The 50 films included in this year’s lineup will be broadcast on channels like the CBC and Corus and streamed on services including Netflix, Crave and Youtube.
Blum said the CanFilmDay organizers tried to make sure there is a film available at any hour on nearly every platform so there’s no excuse not to celebrate. It’s gratifying for everyone at Reel Canada to see how people use the event to become closer through cinema. Some communities have invited special guests and hosted themed activities to take full advantage of CanFilmDay.
No matter what version of the event participants experience, it’s sure to be a Canadian one. Artistic director Sharon Corder is fond of saying that watching films is like having dreams, so if a person only watches Hollywood movies, it limits their experience to a particular part of society.
“It’s like you go to bed at night and you’re dreaming about somebody else and somebody else’s life,” Blum said. “We like to think of Canadian films as the dreams that we come up with about what life is like here in Canada, one region to another, one neighbourhood to another, all kinds of different films.”
CanFilmDay will include private events, tributes to industry greats like filmmaker Charles Officer and a livestreamed author talk for 10,000 students. Because their mission is to promote Canadian cinema, they work to ensure that their offerings include something for everyone.
The pieces range from emotional coming-of-age fiction to thought-provoking documentaries. A dystopian thriller about residential schools and a comedy about a sperm donor may not seem to have much in common, but each film contributes to the overarching message that “human creativity can’t be replaced with machine logic, no matter how impressive it is,” he said.
In a world full of growing divisions, CanFilmDay showcases what brings people together. With 90,000 Canadians participating, Blum said they’re guaranteed to hold different political viewpoints, and yet, it’s a day where people come together, watch and discuss. It’s a chance to promote social cohesion and for Canadians to see their lives reflected on screen.
“There’s far more that binds us together and that we have in common than pushes us apart,” Blum said. “We feel that Canadian film is one of the absolute best ways to experience that.”
To look up screenings or see the at-home viewing options, visit CanFilmDay.ca.