CANADA’S TOP TEN 2010 all screenings take place at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See listings.

The commercial opening of Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies at the TIFF Bell Lightbox can’t help but overshadow the rest of TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten screenings.

Not only did Villeneuve’s movie grab headlines last week when the Toronto Film Critics Association named it the year’s best Canadian film, but it’s also widely expected to clinch an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film on Tuesday. The other nine movies on TIFF’s 10-best feature list would have killed for that level of recognition – particularly Barney’s Version, which is hoping Oscar might throw a couple of nods its way, too.

Best to take each film on its own merits, then, and maybe catch a screening of one of the smaller titles still awaiting release. Ingrid Veninger’s excellent MODRA is set for a Toronto opening February 11, and Denis Côté’s Curling will be getting an exclusive Lightbox run in March, but Catherine Martin’s Trois Temps Après La Mort D’Anna is still without distribution in English Canada. And this will likely be your only chance to see the winning short films on a big screen – playing in two programs of five apiece Saturday night.

The annual panel discussion, happening Friday (January 21) at 6:30 pm, lines up quite a few of this year’s winning filmmakers to discuss the challenge of casting. Currently confirmed are directors Côté, Veninger and Deborah Chow (The High Cost Of Living), Trigger producers Leonard Farlinger and Jennifer Jonas and casting agents John Buchan and Jason Knight (Splice).