The TIFF Cinematheque launched in June of 1990 after the Toronto International Film Festival acquired the Ontario Film Institute. Originally called Cinematheque Ontario, it has since become a world-renowned outlet for cinephiles and film scholars alike, while also attracting people who just appreciate watching great cinema on the big screen.

For their twentieth anniversary, and the last summer the Cinematheque will be at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall before moving to its new home at the Bell Lightbox, Senior Programmer James Quandt has put together a programme that includes retrospectives of James Mason, Akira Kurosawa, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Catherine Breillat, Eric Rohmer, and Julian Schnabel.

Quandt has been part of the Cinematheque since the beginning and has curated hundreds of programmes over the the last twenty years. He is also an award-winning film critic and regular contributor to Artforum magazine. CityNews.ca spoke with him about how the Cinematheque has changed over the years and what the public can expect when they relocate in the fall.

Has the film scene in Toronto changed since the Cinematheque launched in 1990?

Immensely. As everywhere else in the world. When I first came to Toronto 25 or 28 years ago there were countless number of alternative film venues. There was the Ontario Film Institute, Harbourfront, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the ROM had its own film programme. There were all kinds of small programmes and I went to them all because I was a voracious cinephile. I spent seven nights out of seven seeing films. Most of those [venues] are gone now. The number of repertory cinemas has been greatly reduced and a number of these institutions like the Art Gallery of Ontario and the ROM no longer have film programmes. Although just recently there is the company who took over the Carlton Cinema and also [the Toronto Underground Cinema]. There’s signs of a renewal of interest in this kind of presentation of cinema but still I would say that’s the major change.

Why do you feel it has changed so dramatically?

A number of factors. The audience for specialized film -- and that’s a very general term for art-house cinema, foreign cinema, etc., etc. -- everybody agrees that has diminished over the last two decades. In terms of the distribution of cinema, in terms of DVD sales... all of those things. It’s an industry that has become a lot more conservative over the last decade.

Have you seen a specific change in your audience?

Yes. Over the twenty years I would say it’s changed remarkably in many ways. In the early years of the Cinematheque, the first 5 to 10 years, it was hardcore cinephiles. Every time I attempted to do a more “popular” series it always failed. They just weren’t into that kind of programming. One time as an exercise I went through the history of our programming and did an analysis and what it showed, very clearly, was that what was popular with the audience was the most challenging cinema. I’m talking about directors like Harun Farocki, the German essayist, and the Greek film director Theo Angelopoulos. In terms of French cinema it was [Jean-Luc] Godard and [Robert] Bresson, not French comedies or even Jean Renoir, who is much more accessible. It was the tough stuff and that has changed. Back then doing a series of classic Hollywood cinema, I wouldn’t say was pointless because that’s what a cinematheque should be doing, but it was difficult to get an audience to them and that is very different now. For example, a year ago we did [a series on] Otto Preminger and it was a huge success... many of the screenings sold out it was so popular. To my mind that’s a great thing and opens up many new horizons for us.

Are there films you haven’t been able to show that you want to?

Lots. Part of marking the twentieth anniversary is we made a master list of most of the programming we had done over the twenty years and it was fascinating to look at that and see the patterns of who we repeated time and time again, which is partly a reflection of personal taste. I’m a Godard freak so we’ve shown a lot of Jean-Luc Godard. One of the downsides of that process is to look to see the things that you love or think should be shown and we haven’t gotten around to it yet. Which of course doesn’t mean that we won’t get around to it. With the single screen that we’ve had for the last twenty years it did limit some of our choices in programming.

What inspires your summer programming?

The history there is that initially we were in a commercial house, The Backstage, and it was part of the Uptown Cinema complex. Because of the summer season being the big blockbuster season we always lost the cinema for three months. So we never had a summer programme, we always went on hiatus. When we went into Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario we had access to the cinema through the summer. I had to put up a very strong argument for having a summer programme because the thinking was largely that it was the silly season and people don’t want to think or see foreign cinema. The blockbusters take over and everyone goes to the cottage. I thought, from my own personal experience, that everything disappears in terms of a certain kind of culture. There are no more classical music concerts for instance. For me it was difficult because there was not a lot for me to see and I thought there was a lot of other people who probably felt that way. So I started the summer programme and the idea was to do something more populist. The first few years it was called Summer in Italy and it was just a selection of great Italian classics and it was instantly successful. And then that idea got a bit tired so I changed it to Summer in France and did a few years of French classics, equally successful. Then I started experimenting doing more difficult material, and again, great successes. I think in a way it proves that there is room for counter-programming for a certain kind of cinema that people are still looking for.

For a newcomer who has never gone to the Cinematheque what would you say to them to get them into the theatre?

It goes back to the cliched, romantic notion -- and the reason I still continue to do this job -- and that is because I remember the first time I saw a number of films on the big screen, partly because I became a cinephile in an age when there was no VHS or DVD. It just goes back to the fact of an emotional experience of a film as well as the formal experience of it are entirely different when you see a film in a good print on the big screen. It’s usually, in my mind, a much more enveloping, engrossing, overwhelming experience when you see it on the big screen when compared to watching it on a home theatre system, however good a system you have. I really strongly believe this and I see it as kind of a mission to bring people to that experience and hope that they have the same experience I had.

With the move to the new Bell Lightbox in the fall will your programming change at all?

The Cinematheque will continue in its traditional shape and form doing what we’ve always done. [The Bell Lightbox] does give us five [screens] of various sizes and technical capabilities that we don’t currently have. Twice we showed 70mm films over the years and had to show them off-site at commercial cinemas because we didn’t have that capability and now we will. That’s just one example of a number of opportunities for the Cinematheque that the new building opens up.

Why is it important for the public to support the Cinematheque?

We play the same role as a major art museum. We’re dedicated to the entire history of cinema from the very first films of the silent period to now. Art museums play the same cultural role that I think we do in the film world which is making that entire history available in the best possible conditions and the best possible prints... projected the best possible way. I think that without a venue like that our lives would be greatly diminished because we would be watching cinema in a very [reduced] format.

For more information on the TIFF Cinematheque summer schedule, visit cinemathequeontario.ca.

brian.mckechnie@citynews.rogers.com

Top image: A scene from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Courtesy the Criterion Collection.