April 8, 2018
The Innis Film Society was born of out of love, ambition and opportunity.
There had been an Innis Film Society since at least the mid-1970s and, while it was similar to typical student film societies at the time, Innis College was and is home to the Cinema Studies Programme at University of Toronto, so the programming tended to be a mix of art film, Hollywood classics and the occasional avant-garde film. Think Truffaut, Welles, Snow. In 1985 there was a leadership vacuum, so it was possible for a small group of us who were interested in augmenting the avant-garde content to take the reins. There was also a healthier than usual budget from the student society so we were able, in the 1985-86 season, to begin to establish a new identity for Innis, attracting enthusiasts of avant-garde film and not just university students.
Of course, that was still a transitional time, so if memory serves me well, the premiere of Bruce Elder's Lamentations, shown over two nights in the fall of 1986, was followed the next week by Munster Go Home, and probably a Max Ophuls double bill after that. However, we became increasingly interested in becoming a showcase for avant-garde cinema, especially the "classics" that we read about but had almost no opportunity to actually see, and as a place for "artists with their work" presentations, featuring both local and traveling filmmakers. We believed we could offer something different from the Funnel and the AGO, the only other regular forums for avant-garde film at the time.
In the of spring of 1985, the Innis Film Society was principally Jim Shedden, Paul Della Penna (now a senior librarian with the Toronto Public Library system), Mike Zryd, and Bart Testa as our faculty advisor. During the 1985-86 season we were joined by Kate MacKay, Susan Oxtoby and Lisa Godfrey. Dave Morris joined the group in the fall of 1986 and became a very prolific member, and a maker of a series of fantastic super-8, and one 35mm, films. He disappeared from the film scene altogether and now teaches philosophy at Concordia.
Over the years, the following were also either members of the IFS board, or helped make it happen in other ways: John Kneller, John McCullough, Elizabeth Yake, Alexa Frances Shaw, Amy Bodman, Tracy Jenkins, Melony Ward, Chris Eamon, Art Wilson, and Holly MacKay.
The Film Society showcased a huge representation of films from the CFMDC's collection, while also drawing on all the university libraries, the public library, specialty libaries, and private collections. When our funds were better, we broadened our reach to include MoMA's Circulating Film Library and Canyon Cinema, and we even broke down the Film-Makers Coop's resistance to sending films across the scary Canadian border. Favorites emerged, including some oddball films that we would take any opportunity to program, including Maltese Cross Movement (Keewatin Dewdney); Cosmic Ray (Bruce Conner); On the Marriage Broker Joke As Cited by Freud in His Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, or Can the Avant-Garde Artist Be Wholed? (Owen Land); and anything by Paul Sharits, David Rimmer, Hollis Frampton, Marie Menken, Kenneth Anger, Robert Gardner and Joseph Cornell. Andy Warhol joined that list when MoMA started making new prints of his films available. Showing Chelsea Girls, a life-changing film when I saw it at the Funnel in 1981 (82?), was a highlight of our programming.
Innis Town Hall, our primary venue, was built in the 1970s and seated 200 people on groovy orange benches. They were replaced with proper theatre seats in the mid-1980s, making it a little more comfortable, but taking away a bit of its soul. At that time there were only 16mm projectors, which wasn't a problem for avant-garde cinema. Eventually 35mm projectors were installed and we inaugurated them by showing a beautiful step-printed 35mm print of Brakhage's The Dante Quartet, the first time we brought him to Toronto. The film was so beautiful that we decided to show it again. That's when it was revealed that our union projectionist (not Kate) had gouged the print adding a deep green line to the film. We all got over it, but you could smell the anxiety (mine) in the theatre that night.
A big three-gun video projector was added to the mix around 1989 but we avoided it like the plague. Even if we'd been interested in video at the time (and we were very dogmatic cinephiles in those days), we wouldn't have used it. One had to wheel it into place every time it was used, thus throwing off the calibration and making the image look even more hideous than it would have otherwise. A few years ago the theatre was completely renovated and, to my mind, is one of the best places to see film in Toronto. Given that they have great 16mm and 35mm projection, along with a stunning Christie DLP. The theatre is well used by the independent media arts community today, as is Room 222, small film theatre that was renovated at the same time. A collective that I co-founded, ad hoc, uses the space on a regular basis.
Eventually the Innis Film Society became a not-for-profit corporation, trading university funding bodies for arts councils and the like. This had both positive and negative consequences, though today it just seems like it all had to happen. It allowed us to view Innis College as just one possible venue, and to experiment with places like the Rivoli, the AGO's Jackman Hall, the Addiction Research Foundation, and CineCycle, when it was at Spadina and Cecil, behind the LCBO. CineCycle became my favorite venue, despite its obvious shortcomings.
Various members also got in the habit of hosting informal screening salons in their living rooms, and it was there where we able to further establish our connection to the music, literary and visual art communities. Interdisciplinarity was one of Innis's core values, so over the years we were able to feature writers, composers, musicians, scholars, and others whose practice would enhance the presentation context. We featured events like the delirious, 31 hour reading of Finnegans Wake held at CineCycle, and we published Spleen, an avant-garde zine, though it only lasted two issues.
Looking back, one of the most satisfying aspects of putting on the Innis Film Society programs is just how entrepreneurial we had to be. As a result, we collaborated with a huge range of organizations, including some odd bedfellows. I don't remember them all, but they included New Music Concerts, the ROM, the AGO, Harbourfront Centre, the Goethe-Institut, LIFT, the CFMDC, Pleasure Dome, Public, various organizations at U of T, York, Ryerson, the Italian Cultural Institute, the British Council, the Toronto Bloomsday group, and many, many others.
Ultimately, I think the most important thing we did was be a fairly consistent venue for traveling filmmakers. We became a default venue for a certain kind of filmmaker, and Pleasure Dome for another. To caricature it a little bit, the "art for art's sake" filmmakers tended to hosted by Innis, whereas the "subversive cinema" types were more likely showcased by Pleasure Dome. Guests featured by Innis over the years included: Chris Welsby (Australia); Cantrills (Australia); Ernie Gehr; Brakhage; Carl Brown; Marjorie Keller; Sandra Davis; Yann Beauvais; Klaus Telscher; Abraham Ravett; Richard Kerr; Chris Gallagher; Istvan Antal; Barbara Sternberg; Mike Cartmell; Bruce Elder; Michael Snow; Stan Brakhage; Phil Hoffman; Ken Jacobs; Kenneth Anger; Warren Sonbert; Phil Solomon; Carolee Schneemann; Paul Sharits; Pat O'Neill; Alain Fleischer; and Peter Kubelka.
The Film Society lost its momentum in 1992, and had its last screening in 1994. There were a number of factors leading to its demise but its principle players all went on to significant film programming activities elsewhere, or took up various creative pursuits that had their seeds in the Film Society. I went on to be a curator of film at the AGO, and an occasional maker of documentaries about avant-garde filmmakers like Brakhage and Snow. Susan Oxtoby went on to program film for Cinematheque Ontario, and is now the senior curator for the prestigious Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Kathryn MacKay joined her there as a curator a couple of years ago. Mike Zryd is a Professor of Film at York University, specializing in avant-garde cinema (he is completing a book on Hollis Frampton). Bart Testa became a prolific film programmer, and author of many texts on avant-garde cinema. Lisa Godfrey is a senior producer at CBC, currently working on the legendary Ideas series. Tracy Jenkins runs the Lula Lounge in Toronto, a mecca for great music of the world.
