3 Canadian films to watch on National Canadian Film Day

Founded in 2014, National Canadian Film Day (or CanFilmDay) encourages audiences to "stand up for Canada by sitting down to watch a great Canadian film."

This year, CanFilmDay will present almost 2,000 free screenings across every province and territory, as well as more than 43 countries around the world. The movement has seen a surge of support in recent months thanks in large part to the current moment of national pride, with registrations running 60 per cent higher than last year.

Today on Commotion, Toronto Metropolitan University's Storyteller in Residence Jesse Wente, film critic Sarah-Tai Black and screenwriter Nathalie Younglai join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to celebrate CanFilmDay, and to discuss the state of Canadian filmmaking in 2025.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Jesse, we were talking before we went live, and you were like, "There used to be a time when I saw 10,000 movies a year." Maybe you see slightly fewer than that now, but seeing as this is National Canadian Film Day, can you give me a home-grown movie that has come out in the last year or so, that you think people should spend some time with?

Jesse: Well, sure, but just to quickly correct the misinformation that just occurred, it was 1,500.

Elamin: That's a lot, man. That's three a day. Anyway, yes. Continue.

Jesse: Yeah, so I was a film critic and programming a couple different film festivals at that time, and that's how you accumulate that. The film I most want to highlight is a fantastic documentary. Canadian cinema is very much rooted in the documentary tradition. That's where our national cinema actually comes from, from the founding of the National Film Board and the early days of the CBC…. And so I want to highlight Wilfred Buck. This is a fantastic documentary, sort of a biography of this Cree elder who's very well known in all Indigenous communities as being "the star guy," because he has a deep understanding and knowledge of Cree astronomy and understanding of the stars in a very different way than we understand now.

This film melds science and humanity. It takes you through time. It takes you through literal space, Elamin. I think it's just a fantastic film, and the type of film that … gives a window for a lot of the world, and for Canada, it gives a great opportunity to reflect on the knowledge systems that have existed here for thousands of years and that yet remain somewhat of an untapped resource for the Canada of today.

Elamin: You're such a great salesman of a movie, Jesse, that I'm like, "I'm gonna abandon the rest of the show and go find this movie."... Sarah-Tai, over to you, pal. What do you want to recommend?

Sarah-Tai: Something I watched very recently and enjoyed is Sook-Yin Lee's Paying For It, which is an adaptation of cartoonist Chester Brown's graphic novel of the same name. The novel follows his decision to start frequenting sex workers after the break-up of his real-life relationship with Sook-Yin. And Sook-Yin is re-imagined in the film as this character, Sunny. 

It's this very nostalgic, zeitgeist-y look at late '90s, early 2000s Toronto's arts and culture. You get to see that transition of MuchMusic, which is called MaxMusic in the film, from this kind of zany DIY platform for punky kids into this more mainstream space. It's really funny. It's really cool. I laughed out loud, which is very difficult to do for me for a narrative film. But I think it's really fresh, and I think Sook-Yin and co-writer Joanne Sarazen add a really amazing feminist perspective to Chester's story as well.

Elamin: Natalie, over to you pal. What do you want to recommend?

Natalie: I'd love to highlight Lucky Strikes, which is a film by Darcy Waite. It's this hilarious Indigenous comedy starring Victoria Gwendolyne, Gabriel Daniels and Meegwun Fairbrother. It's about this washed-up Indigenous bowler trying to preserve his father's legacy by buying his late father's bowling alley. But first, [he and his best friend] have to win this national bowling competition. I think these really fun and quirky stories about Indigenous communities are really important for audiences who are Indigenous, but also non-Indigenous too alike.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.