With the big announcement of Canada’s Top Ten last night, I can finally come clean: I was on the 2009 features panel. Here’s the list of this year’s honorees; here’s the list of the Top Ten shorts, which are quite an interesting mix.

Ever try watching a year’s worth of national cinema in the space of two months? I don’t recommend it to everyone, especially when you’re working in secret and can’t talk about the movies you’ve seen with any of your friends for fear they’ll figure out what you’re doing: “Wait, why were you watching a Quebecois relationship drama about suicidal sky-divers?”

But you get a really interesting sense of emerging trends and developing styles, and sometimes you stumble onto something that you wouldn’t believe existed if you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes. Like the Quebecois relationship drama about suicidal sky-divers, for example.

I just wish more documentaries had made it to the final list. Or even, you know, one.