TAKE ONE: Take One's: 2002 Survey of Canadian Cinema

Every year, Take One tracks all the Canadian features and feature-length documentaries that play in the Greater Toronto Area--the largest market in the world for English-Canadian films--in an effort to develop a picture of those Canadian films that are popular with the theatre-going public. The hands-down 2002 favourite was Zacharias Kunuk's Inuit epic, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. Although honoured at the 2001 Genies for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay, Atanarjuat didn't begin its commercial run until 2002 and outlasted all contenders, making it one of the most popular Canadian features of all time.

In many respects, 2002 was an excellent year for Canadian cinema, one of the best in a long time. In addition to the highly regarded Atanarjuat, there was Paul Gross's curling comedy Men with Brooms, which became the highest-grossing English-Canadian film at the box office to date, Deepa Mehta's East-meets-West, all-singing, all-dancing romantic comedy Bollywood/Hollywood, and Atom Egoyan's Ararat, a gloomy meditation on memory and genocide. It's a sign of the quality of Canadian cinema in 2002 that Egoyan's latest opus was not the dominate film of the year. An out-of-the-blue dark horse "hit" was Michael Dowser's head-banging mock-documentary, FUBAR, from Calgary, and Michael Moore's anti-gun documentary, Bowling for Columbine. Although only Canadian by virtue of its producing partner, Salter Street Films of Halifax, Columbine proved very popular with local audiences (and picked up an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary). Another minority co-production, Formula 51, performed extremely well, taking in over $12 million States-side, making it one of the highest-grossing "Canadian" films ever released. And finally, the end of 2002 saw the release of Charles Biname's Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche in Quebec. By press time, the film had raked in over $7 million, making it the all-time domestic box-office champ in Canadian film history. With its unique mixture of critical and popular successes, 2002 will be a hard year to surpass.

Take One's Canadian film of the year: Atanarjuat.

RELATED ARTICLE: Canadian Features Released in the Greater Toronto Area in 2002

Thirty-nine features were released in the GTA in 2002 and are listed here in descending order with the director and the number of weeks played in parenthesis.

Atanarjuat, Zacharias Kunuk (17)

Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore (11)

Men with Brooms, Paul Gross (9)

Bollywood/Hollywood, Deepa Mehta (8)

Ararat, Atom Egoyan (7)

FUBAR, Michael Dowser (6)

Red Green's Duct Tape Forever, Eric Till (6)

Formula 51, Ronny Yu (5)

The Pornographer, Bertrand Bonello (5)

Rare Birds, Sturla Gunnarsson (4)

Between Strangers, Edoardo Ponti (3)

Un Crabe dans la tete, Andre Turpin (3)

Inertia, Sean Garrity (3)

Perfect Pie, Barbara Willis Sweete (3)

Saint Monica, Terrance Odette (3)

Virgina's Run, Peter Markle (3)

Black Swan, Wendy Ord (2)

The Fourth Angel, John Irvin (2)

Khaled, Asghar Mossambagi (2)

Lola, Carl Bessai (2)

Looking for Leonard, Matthew Bissonnette and Steven Clark (2)

Mariages, Catherine Martin (2)

Passage to Ottawa, Gaurav Seth (2)

Quebec-Montreal, Ricardo Trogi (2)

The Rhino Brothers, Dwayne Beaver (2)

Suddenly Naked, Anne Wheeler (2)

Suspicious River, Lynne Stopkewich (2)

Turning Paige, Robert Cuffley (2)

Yellowknife, Roderigue Jean (2)

Cyberman, Peter Lynch (1)

Danny in the Sky, Denis Langlois (1)

A Girl at the Window, Francis Leclerc (1)

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, Patricia Rozema (1, re-release)

Kevin of the North, Robert Spiers (1)

Mile Zero, Andrew Currie (1)

L'Odyssey de Alice Tremblay, Denise Filiatrault (1)

On Their Knees, Anais Granofsky (1)

Rub & Tug, Soo Lyu (1)

White Lies, Ruben Preuss (1)

Genie Awards (Canadian Film Awards)

Picture: Ararat (Robert Lantos, Atom Egoyan)

Director: David Cronenberg, Spider

Original Screenplay: Deepa Mehta, Bollywood/Hollywood

Adapated Screenplay: Sharon Riis, Savage Messiah

Actor: Luc Picard, Savage Messiah

Actress: Arsinee Khanjian, Ararat

Supporting Actor: Elias Koteas, Ararat

Supporting Actress: Pascale Montpetit, Savage Messiah

Cinematography: Paul Sarossy, Perfect Pie

Editing: Suddenly Naked

Art Direction: Almost America

Costumes: Ararat

Musical Score: Ararat

Original Song: Saint Monica

Sound Editing: Max

Overall Sound: Between Strangers

Feature Documentary: Gambling, Gods and LSD

Live-Action Short: I Shout Love

Animated Short: The Hungry Squid

Claude Jutra Award: Keith Behrman, Flower & Garnet

Golden Reel Award: Richard

Goudreau, Les Boys III

Les Prix Jutra

(Quebec Film Awards)

Picture: Quebec--Montreal

(Nicole Robert)

Director: Ricardo Trogi, Quebec--Montreal

Screenplay: Jean--Philippe

Pearson, Patrice Robitaille, Ricardo Trogi, Quebec--Montreal

Actor: Pierre Lebeau, Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche

Actress: Karine Vanasse, Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche

Supporting Actor: Luc Picard, Le Collectionneur

Supporting Actress: Isabelle Blais, Quebec--Montreal

Cinematography: Jean Lepine, Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche

Editing: Le Neg

Art Direction: Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche

Musical Score: Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche

Sound: Seraphin: Un Homme et son peche

Documentary: Rein sans pennes

Short Film: La Derniere voix

Animated Short: Les Ramoneurs cerebraux

Top Ten at the Box Office

According to a Playback survey published November 25, 2002, covering the period from November 9, 2001 to November 7, 2002. The box--office totals are expressed in millions in parenthesis.

Les Boys III ($5.3)

Men with Brooms ($3.9)

L'Odyssey de Alice Tremblay ($2.1)

Savage Messiah ($1.6)

Atanarjuat ($1.1)

La Mysterieuse mademoiselle C. ($1.1)

Le Collectionneur ($0.9)

Quebec--Montreal ($0.9)

Bollywood/Hollywood ($0.8)

Formula 51 ($0.8).

Toronto International Film Festival's 2002 Top Ten

Selected by a 10-member national panel of filmmakers, festival programmers, journalists and industry professionals. Listed alphabetically with the director in parenthesis.

Ararat (Atom Egoyan)

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin 's Diary (Guy Maddin)

Flower & Garnet (Keith Behrman)

Gambling, Gods & LSD (Peter Mettler)

Marion Bridge (Wiebke von Carolsfeld)

Le Neg' (Robert Morin)

Ocean (Catherine Martin)

Spider (David Cronenberg)

Tom (Mike Hoolboom)

La Turbulence des fluides/Chaos and

Desire (Manon Briand)