No Canadian city has been exposed, cinematically speaking, more often than Toronto. Published to coincide with the city’s 175th birthday, Toronto on Film examines the way the city has been presented in cinema. Geoff Pevere examines Toronto’s portrayal by filmmakers such as David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan and in seminal works such as Don Owen’s Nobody Waved Goodbye and Don Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road. Just like the real city, the reel city of Toronto is a place of fascinating complexity, rich contradiction, and radical transformation, and Pevere presents an analysis of how filmmakers such as Deepa Mehta (Sam and Me; Bollywood Hollywood) and Srnivas Krishna (Masala) have created an alternative, more magical view of the city. Key landmarks such as the CN Tower and the Yonge Street strip are featured in some of the wilder and more recherché portraits of Toronto.

Toronto on Film includes a new essay by critic and scholar Matthew Hays, writing on the development of queer-themed film in Toronto, as well as contributions by Piers Handling, Toronto International Film Festival co-director and CEO; former Take One editor and publisher Wyndham Wise (on the emergence of the independent film scene in 1960s Toronto); filmmaker and scholar Brenda Longfellow (on the birth of the Toronto New Wave); and Steve Gravestock, associate director of Canadian programming at TIFF. The book contains an annotated filmography of key Toronto films.

Published by the Toronto International Film Festival. Distributed in Canada by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Distributed outside Canada by Indiana University Press.

Geoff Pevere is one of Canada's leading pop culture commentators and movie critics. The former host of CBC Radio's groundbreaking Prime Time program, he is also the co-?author of the national bestseller Mondo Canuck: A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey. Currently a movie columnist with the Globe and Mail, he was a movie critic with the Toronto Star for ten years, a TV host with TVOntario and Rogers Television, and a lecturer on film and media. His other books include Toronto on Film and Donald Shebib's Goin' Down the Road.

Geoff Pevere's profile page

Piers Handling's profile page

Matthew Hays is a Montreal-based critic, author, film festival programmer, and university instructor. He is the co-editor (with Thomas Waugh) of Arsenal Pulp's Queer Film Classics series. He has been a film critic and reporter for the weekly Montreal Mirror since 1993. His first book, The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers (Arsenal Pulp Press), was cited by Quill & Quire as one of the best books of 2007 and won a 2008 Lambda Literary Award. His articles have appeared in a broad range of publications, including The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, Vice, The Walrus, The Advocate, The Toronto Star, The International Herald Tribune, Cineaste, Cineaction, Quill & Quire, This Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Canadian Screenwriter, and Xtra!. He teaches courses in journalism, communication studies and film studies at Concordia University, where he received his MA in communication studies in 2000. A two-time nominee for a National Magazine Award, Hays received the 2013 Concordia President's Award for Teaching Excellence. .
Matthew is also co-editor (with Thomas Waugh) of the Queer Film Classics series.

Matthew Hays' profile page

Wyndham Wise is the publisher and editor of Take One: Film and Television in Canada, published five times annually.

Wyndham Wise's profile page

Geoff Pevere has been a broadcaster, programmer, author, and critic for more than thirty years. He was the first program coordinator of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Perspective Canada program. For many years he was the film critic for the Toronto Star, where he now writes about books. He is the co-author (with Greig Dymond) of Mondo Canuck: A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey and author of Team Spirit: A Field Guide to Roots Culture .

Brenda Longfellow's profile page

Steve Gravestock has been programming Nordic film for the Toronto International Film Festival since 1999 and has written extensively on the subject in a wide variety of outlets. His previous publications include Don Owen: Notes on a Filmmaker and His Culture and he co-edited and contributed to Geoff Pevere’s Toronto on Film. Gravestock also contributed to William Beard and Jerry White’s North of Everything: English Canadian Film since 1980 and John Sayles: Interviews and wrote the foreword to Entre Nous: The Cinema of Denis Côte.

Steve Gravestock's profile page

Justin D. Edwards is associate professor of English at the University of Copenhagen where he teaches, among other things, Canadian and American gothic literature.

Justin D. Edwards' profile page