TORONTO - Look around a movie set, and the person sitting in the director's chair is usually a man. But this year's Toronto International Film Festival suggests that an increasing number of Canadian women are calling the shots.
While the festival kicked off Thursday with Paul Gross's war epic "Passchendaele," high-profile features helmed by Canadian women are also taking centre stage. They include Deepa Mehta's dark domestic drama, "Heaven On Earth" and Kari Skogland's controversial IRA thriller, "Fifty Dead Men Walking."
Buzz is also surrounding Ingrid Veninger's coming-of-age film "Only," and Marie-Helene Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu's visually stunning Inuit tale "Before Tomorrow."
"There are a lot of films by women," Steve Gravestock, director of TIFF's Canadian programming, says of this year's roster.
"Around 30 per cent in terms of the overall selection."
That's noticeably high for the festival, he says, noting that Canada tends to fare better on the gender balance than the United States but generally lags behind European countries, particularly France.
"I think (it) is partially a tribute to the funding agencies, in some ways, but also, ultimately to the tenacity of the filmmakers," he says of the Canadian women who've gained recent ground.
The female directing team of Cousineau and Ivalu, meanwhile, circumvented the traditional channels by way of their women's collective, Arnait Video Workshop. "Before Tomorrow" is the company's first full-length feature, and tells the story of an Inuit woman and her grandson, abandoned on a remote island to fend for themselves.
"I realized that there was the IBC, Inuit Broadcasting Corporation, (but) it was mostly men who were working there," Cousineau says of her decision to form an all-female film collective in 1991.
"The women were not really present."
"Before Tomorrow" was produced by Igloolik Isuma Productions, which was also behind the groundbreaking "Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner" and "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen." Cousineau says her female-dominated set stressed collaboration when it came to shooting her lyrical tale of survival.
"We had a lot of meetings, we had a lot of consultation," says Cousineau, noting it was a departure from the set of "Atanarjuat."
"When we're together, it's like we respect each other and (ask) `What do you want to do?' and `How do you feel about that?"'
"It's very important to tell women's stories from a woman's point of view."
Veteran actress Susan Coyne says it's a lack of confidence that seems to hamper a lot of women hoping to helm films, noting that her own insecurities have kept her from striking out until this year's festival, where she will be presenting the short film, "How Are You?" with her "Slings and Arrows" co-star, Martha Burns.
"As an actor and a female actor, getting a chance to ... see the whole thing from on top is really critical in terms of reinventing yourself," Coyne says.
"Because you're not just waiting for people to tell you what to do and that's slightly female, in a way, like, `Who do you think I am? What would you like me to say?' But to have a chance to really collaborate, listen, ask questions, make decisions, is very liberating."
Despite the longstanding gender barriers, there are women who have managed to achieve big screen success. Sarah Polley was the toast of the festival two years ago with her poignant feature "Away From Her," while U.S. director Kathryn Bigelow is expected to make a splash at this year's event with her war film "The Hurt Locker."
Indie film hero Bruce McDonald says the movie industry's reputation as a "boy's club" is alive and well, but he's noticed a shift in what were traditionally assigned to men and women on film sets.
"In the last sort of 10, 15 years, (there's) more of a bit of a balance," says McDonald, who debuts his first horror flick, "Pontypool" at the festival.
"So the women in the traditional roles of, like, hair and makeup and stuff, now you're seeing more in the camera department, in the grip department, in the electric department, which have traditionally been male-bastions of maleness."
"A big part is the technology because, as a filmmaker, it's probably the best time ever now to sort of be saying: `I'm going to make a movie.' Because you can, with this and with that, you can literally make a movie. ... It's great to see that this has sort of democratized or sort of liberalized, generally what has been, historically a boys club in terms of the directors."
Coyne and Burns' next project will be a collection of shorts called "Little Films about Big Moments," in which they pair nine up-and-coming filmmakers with veterans in the field. It's a way to foster the kind of confidence that Coyne felt she lacked until recently.
"Frankly, that's the gift of getting older -- when you think, `Well, if I'm not going to do it now, when are you going to do it? Jump!' " Coyne says.
"I meet younger women who are so much more confident than I was at their age and they don't ask the same questions. I think things are changing probably because their mothers were different, I feel like I'm coming late to this party, yet I'm inspired by younger women who have more confidence in themselves."
