Canada was in the spotlight as Guest of Honour for the prestigious Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair), which happened October 20 to 24, 2021! Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, Canada’s Country of Honour role continued from the Frankfurt Book Fair’s online 2020 special edition, into this year’s big event.
In a collaboration between over 40 esteemed cultural partners and institutions, Canada’s rich, innovative, and diverse content and culture continued to captivate with our unforgettable presence and programming initiative: Canada FBM2021. The theme? Canada’s Singular Plurality.
Some Canada FBM2021 Highlights
Featuring exhibitors from 100 countries, the Frankfurt Book Fair is a significant international content marketplace with some 285,000 visitors. To adhere to public health measures and travel and safety advisories, Canada FBM2021’s more than 80 activities (including our Guest of Honour Pavilion) were offered both onsite and online!
It was the perfect stage on which to boost the international visibility and prestige of Canadian content, while cultivating international business and partnership opportunities. This applied to not only the publishing industry, but all our cultural industries and creators — from literature to performing arts, exhibitions, installations, and audiovisual content spanning the spectrum of film, television, and digital media. Telefilm Canada was responsible for the audiovisual portion of the cultural programming, in partnership with Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, Global Affairs Canada and Canada FBM2021.
Here’s a recap of Canada’s audiovisual programming:
A special selection of Indigenous short films came to life in this series of screenings, after which audiences and creators had the opportunity to discuss and interact in Q&A sessions. The films were shown on “tricycle projectors,” also designed by Wapikoni Mobile.
A Crack in Everything: Discover contemporary art while exploring the world of Leonard Cohen
From works of art to audiovisual content, poems, portraits, songs, and more, this virtual exhibition could be experienced in person, and offered an “audiovisual immersion” into Leonard Cohen, in partnership with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
With a book equipped with QR codes to activate volumetric cinema holograms on your mobile device, this augmented reality experience was based on poems by iconic Canadian women: Margaret Atwood, Nicole Brossard, Canisia Lubrin, and Sarah Tolmie. In partnership with the Canadian Film Centre.
Three Canadian film festivals — imagineNATIVE, REGARD (the International Short Film Festival of Saguenay), and Vancouver International Film Festival — joined forces to curate Canadian short films that were projected onto walls of downtown Frankfurt buildings that visitors could experience on a guided walking tour.
The Maple Movies Festival Tour 2021/22: Canada by the Book 10th Festival of Canadian Film
The 10th edition of this exciting touring initiative began September 30 and continues all the way through April 30, 2022! Don’t miss this selection of eight Canadian films, most adapted from literature, and a special Indigenous shorts section. Feature films include:
- Atom Egoyan’s Guest of Honour
- David Cronenberg’s Crash (adapted from J.G. Ballard’s novel)
- Anaïs Barbeau Lavalette’s Goddess of the Fireflies (La déesse des mouches à feu) (adapted from Geneviève Pettersen’s novel)
- Sophie Deraspe’s Antigone (adapted from Sophocles’ play, was Canada’s official contender for the Best International Feature Film nomination for the 92nd Academy Awards)
- Deanne Foley’s An Audience of Chairs (adapted from the book by Joan Clark)
- Myriam Verreault’s Kuessipan (an adaptation of the novel by Naomi Fontaine)
- Miryam Bouchard’s My Very Own Circus (Mon cirque à moi)
- Loretta Sarah Todd’s Monkey Beach (from a novel by Eden Robinson)
