Sometimes, a rebellious phase is the best thing that can happen to National Cinema. Even typing those words, “national cinema” sends a shiver down my spine. There’s something gauche and irksome about clamoring after a cinematic identity defined by, in some significant way, a country of origin. Then again, I write to you from Canada, a country whose desperation for something resembling national cinema has become our cinematic output’s defining trait.
Personally, in this instance at least, I side with David Cronenberg, who stated the bluntly obvious fact that “Canadian cinema” is simply cinema created by Canadians.
Source: Identity, Rebellion, and the Origins of New German Cinema