Making Movie Magic

Poised for a breakout hit in its 10th year, the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) is entering its tweens with a refreshed identity and its eye on becoming Canada’s go-to festival for emerging filmmakers.

To accomplish this, the 2009 fest (September 25 to October 4) is going renegade with a film competition and overall rebranding strategy called “Mavericks.” Bankrolled by American Express, CIFF is offering a $25,000 prize to the up-and-coming filmmaker whose work best exemplifies the “maverick” spirit.

The term has built-in familiarity — thanks largely to the Glenbow Museum’s permanent exhibit, Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta, which is based on Aritha van Herk’s book of the same title — but it is also brilliantly ambiguous. Its wiggly definition is indicative of the competition’s filmic variety, including more than 100 entrants in categories such as musicals, foreign language, expensive high-end productions and low-cost D.I.Y. creations.

According to CIFF’s director of programming, Trevor Smith, the final 10 films in the competition this year were created by auteurs or filmmakers with a signature style and voice.

“Anything that makes the story different and forces the viewer to engage, whether it be the acting or shooting style, a technological decision or the plotting of the story,” Smith says. Think a young Quentin Tarantino, David Cronenberg or David Lynch  — filmmakers who create on their own terms.

To search out these rogue creative types, CIFF organizers spent the early part of 2009 networking at big-time international festivals such as Rotterdam, Berlin and Sundance. The marketing blitz also included raising CIFF’s profile through Internet campaigns and a flashy digital billboard above the Palais des Festivals at Cannes.

The campaign put CIFF on the radar of European film organizations, including the Danish Film Institute, Wild Bunch and The Match Factory. All three have film catalogues CIFF has coveted, but until now Calgary’s major movie extravaganza hasn’t been considered a viable market.

“It’s baby steps toward getting to a place where we can have a better selections of films,” Smith says of the progress festival organizers have made.

In the meantime, the Top-10 Maverick films, as determined by a jury of local, national and international filmmakers and critics, will screen throughout the festival. The winner will be announced at the Mavericks Awards Dinner on October 3 by CIFF’s Honorary Maverick of the Year, as a passing of the torch from an acclaimed filmmaker who helped reshape cinema and inspire a new generation of upstarts to succeed. (calgaryfilm.com)

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