BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image
Cecilia Araneda (bottom left), executive director of the Winnipeg Film Group, with her staff in the Artspace Building: "People can focus on being a filmmaker. We set up everything to enable them to be a filmmaker."
There may have been no lights, camera, action for many filmmakers in the city if not for the Winnipeg Film Group.
No WFG could have meant no animator Richard Condie, no filmmaker Guy Maddin. Same for director John Paizs.
As well, without the WFG there would be no Cinematheque, so many local films as well as international documentaries would never have been shown here.
"The WFG has evolved significantly since those early days, but the essential spirit that triggered its foundation -- that of creating and building opportunities for independent filmmaking in Manitoba -- is still very much central to the WFG," says the WFG's executive director, Cecilia Araneda.
"The WFG and the film industry still have several important shared objectives, but our commitment now is to the broader community and in engaging the local community widely in the art of cinema.
"I think we're the best-kept secret in Winnipeg."
The WFG was founded in 1974 as a charitable, artist-run organization specializing in promoting the art of cinema locally.
Since then, the WFG has grown to include a theatre, a film production centre, a distribution centre and an editing studio, and films by its members have been shown around the world including Cannes, Berlin and Venice.
Perhaps the most famous alumnus of the WFG is Maddin, whose first film with its help was The Dead Father, a short film released in 1986, and his first feature was Tales from the Gimli Hospital in 1988.
"I still don't ever think of this as a career," Maddin said recently.
"My filmmaking is my avocation. It's what I live to do. But with the WFG, way back in the '80s when we were all gaining momentum together, it was really indispensable to me.
"If not for them, I wouldn't be a filmmaker now -- it's that simple."
Maddin said he joined the WFG so he could use their equipment, which is cheap for members to use, and its facilities.
"Equipment would have been too expensive to rent or buy. I try not to use their equipment now -- I'd rather see a young filmmaker use it -- but every so often I do."
Not only is Maddin still loyal to the WFG, the WFG still helps Maddin. The WFG made four new 35-millimetre prints of Maddin's classic film, Archangel, in 2008. The film, which came out in 1990, won the U.S. National Society of Film Critics' prize for Best Experimental Film of the Year in 1991.
But while the film was honoured two decades ago and is one of Maddin's personal favourites, it hadn't been seen in a theatre for years until the new prints were produced.
Maddin said the WFG also organized screenings of Tales from the Gimli Hospital, with live music, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and at New York City's Lincoln Center recently.
"I'm very grateful," he said.
Filmmaker Leon Johnson was there at the beginning of the WFG and was its first co-ordinator during the initial years. He said the idea germinated at the Canadian Film Symposium held at the University of Manitoba in 1974.
"It was about 10 to 12 of us that decided we wanted to stay and live in Winnipeg and work in film," Johnson said recently, just after completing work as part of the crew on the movie Curse of Chucky and starting production on a pilot for the CBC.
"Now there's a lot of pretty good filmmakers and there seems to be more every year."
The first film completed by the fledgling WFG was Rabbit Pie in 1976. Two years later, Alan Pakarnyk's Day Dream was completed and won awards at film festivals in New York and Chicago.
The Cinematheque program, initiated by then-executive director Merit Jensen Carr, began in 1982 at the then-National Film Board theatre on Main Street.
The WFG and Cinematheque moved into its current location, the Artspace Building at 100 Arthur St., in 1986.
Just like Maddin, Johnson admitted "I probably wouldn't be working on a film today if not for the WFG.
"I had been in Montreal and I didn't want to work in advertising and I didn't want to live in a big city. I think we're very fortunate to have it and for it to be here this long."
Araneda said the WFG has gone from receiving a $20,000 grant from the Canada Council to an operation with a budget of more than $1 million per year.
She said the WFG offers aspiring filmmakers training, mentorship, production funding, production and post-production equipment and facilities, and local, national and international distribution.
Araneda said they also have a large climate controlled room that houses past WFG films.
"We have (Paizs') Crime Wave here on 16 mm in English, German, and Italian. We also have Maddin's Archangel on 35 mm."
Monica Lowe, the WFG's distribution director, said there have been 800 movies produced there and they are working on a project to digitize everything.
"People created less when they were using film, but now with digital it is ramping up," she said.
"There were probably 500 created during the first 30 years, and in the last five years about one-third of our collection was made."
Araneda said the WFG's ability to distribute films to their counterparts in other cities helps local filmmakers.
"People can focus on being a filmmaker. We set up everything to enable them to be a filmmaker."
Araneda said the WFG continues to dream for the future. She said it would love to have a new location where it could have two theatres -- large and small -- so a projection booth could hold both old and new technologies for screening films, but also to make it possible to host school groups.
"At some point, we won't have any more room in our projection booth for the new technologies because we still have to show older movies here," she said.
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
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How to help
Donations can be mailed or dropped off at 304-100 Arthur St., Winnipeg, MB, R3B 1H3, or you can make a donation online by going to www.winnipegfilmgroup.com .
Businesses can help through a matching funds commitment from the Winnipeg Arts Council's ArtsVest. ArtsVest will match cash sponsorships from businesses up to $8,000.
If you want to know how the WFG will use donations, call Cecilia Araneda at 204-925-3456, Ext. 102, or send an email to cecilia@winnipegfilmgroup.com .
The WFG is also looking for donations of film equipment in good shape. Call Ivan Hughes at 204-925-3456, Ext. 109, or send an email to ivan@winnipegfilmgroup.com .
Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/screen-gem-176075691.html
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