Woodford on Film

 Jason Anderson is a film programmer and critic from Toronto, Ontario. He programs for TIFF, Aspen Shortsfest, and the Kingston Canadian Film Festival, and has written for outlets like Sight and Sound. He is also a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto where he teaches critical writing on film. In this interview, I wanted to ask him a bit about his process as a programmer.

VW: How would you describe yourself and your work?

JA: Though I still feel very connected to my longtime practice as a journalist specializing in film, music and the arts, I would say that the majority of my work now is as a programmer for a variety of film festivals. That began with a relationship with the Kingston Canadian Film Festival in the late 2000s and now includes positions with the Toronto International Film Festival and Aspen Shortsfest. For all these festivals, I strive to curate the work that I believe best serves their respective audiences. I hope to find and present work that these viewers will find exciting, compelling and enlightening. I also want to do all I can to shine a light on film and filmmakers that I think are very much worthy of the attention and support.

VW: When choosing what to program, are there any specific qualities you look for in a film?

JA: That depends so much on what the film itself seems to be aiming for, and what kind of aims and audiences that seem to be most relevant. If there are any fundamentals regardless of the genre or nature of the individual work, I’d say that the films that really pop are ones that feel very specific and personal in terms of what they express and how they express it. If they achieve that, they typically have a clarity and force (even if it’s a quiet one) that are lacking in work that feels more vague or muddled or imprecise. I’m also really hoping to see people on screen who feel very compelling and unique, whether they’re actors or documentary subjects. What I want is for whoever’s on camera to seem fully alive in the moment, whatever they’re trying to be or do.

VW: When you are programming films from abroad, is it difficult to choose what films are important or culturally significant to a country you are not currently living in?

JA: It can be for sure. I am grateful whenever I can share work with colleagues and find out more how they may see something, especially if it’s from a culture or perspective or voice that may be far outside my experience. I try to stay very open and empathetic and curious because I know that there’s always going to be a huge amount of nuance I’m inevitably going to miss being limited to one lens and one brain. 

VW: How do you balance programming films that you personally enjoy with films that you don’t like but think will have a wide appeal with audiences?

I thankfully have pretty wide tastes and feel like a lot of the prejudices and presumptions I used to have eroded away over time after seeing so much for so long. Certainly there are films that I think may be imperfect or very conventional in many regards but that I know will satisfy particular audiences (and wide audiences). But even with those, I feel like I have some kind of appreciation and understanding for what their creators have done. I’m glad that I haven’t had to present work that I really believe has no redeeming qualities or any reason to be (or at least only done that very rarely!). 

VW: Out of the films you’ve programmed over the years, do you have any favourites?

JA: Too many to name! There are certainly a few shorts I was really, really happy to get to play at TIFF by emergent directors who then went on to make incredible first features, like Astel, a really beautiful one by the Senegalese-French director Ramata Toulaye-Sy who later landed a first feature in the Cannes competition, or Blue Christmas, the last short by Charlotte Wells before she did Aftersun. I’ve come to really enjoy playing movies that I found very moving, like Julian by Cato Kusters this year. It was especially gratifying reading all the comments and reviews from people who admitted to crying over that one, given that I sobbed through it too!

VW: Do you have any recommendations for hidden-gem Canadian films? 

JA: I second Adam Nayman’s efforts to bring more attention to Seven Figures by David Christensen, which is a very remarkable anomaly in Canadian cinema and undoubtedly the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Michael Haneke movie from Calgary. I’m also a big fan of The Top of His Head, the one narrative feature by Peter Mettler, who’s otherwise spent his career making mystic-minded documentaries. I’ll never forget seeing one of the first screenings of Panos Cosmatos’ indescribably weird first feature Beyond The Black Rainbow and getting my mind blown. Among my desert-island shorts are everything by Marie-Eve Juste and Ariane-Louis Seize. 

VW: When you’re creating a Canadian program, do you make an effort to look for films made outside of the country’s major film hubs (Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec)?

JA: For TIFF and the Kingston Canadian festival, we’re most definitely trying to get the widest possible view of filmmaking in Canada. The abundance of fantastic work by indigenous directors means the chance to discard outmoded views of this country in many, many regards. I think there’s been such a push to support work from beyond the big cities that it’s not hard to find exciting stories from all three coasts and from most of the spaces in between them.

VW: What advice would you give to film students who want to enter the festival or criticism industry when they graduate? 

JA: When it comes to festival work, there are so many amazing events across the country that students could become part of in a huge variety of capacities. I think the more micro and community-oriented ones are a great place to start, especially since TIFF can be such a behemoth. Plus it only happens once a year, as opposed to the many monthly or seasonal series that can form a more regular connection between people. I’d say that criticism has been harder to professionalize but I’m thrilled to see younger writers (like the ones congregating at the Crit Salon series) push to get their work out there and to start new conversations.  

VW: Where can we find your work? 

JA: Weirdly enough, it’s very much in print! My work regularly appears on newsstands (the few that still remain!) in places like Uncut magazine and Broadview and sometimes Sight & Sound. I feel like I wrote a third of the last TIFF program book, too.