The Montreal International Film Festival was an annual Canadian
film festival
A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theater, cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online.
Films may be of recent ...
, which took place in
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
,
Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
Montreal Star
''The Montreal Star'' was an English language, English-language Canada, Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike.
It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950 ...
'', June 13, 1960.
History
A primarily non-competitive festival, it was led throughout its history by
Pierre Juneau
Pierre Juneau (October 17, 1922 – February 21, 2012) was a Canadian film and broadcast executive, a one-time member of the Canadian Cabinet, the first chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) an ...
as president, with
Robert Daudelin
Robert Daudelin (born May 31, 1939, in Bromont, Quebec) is a Canadian film administrator and historian, best known as the longtime director of the Cinémathèque québécoise.Pierre Véronneau"Robert Daudelin" ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'', Augus ...
as a manager and programmer.
At the fourth festival in 1963, the festival also introduced a competitive parallel Festival of Canadian Films, with a prize presented to the film judged as the best film in the program.
The overall festival developed a positive international reputation, culminating in its hosting the world premiere of the film ''
Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut "Champion" Barrow (March 24, 1909May 23, 1934) were American outlaws who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression, committing a ser ...
'' in 1967,"400 Films To Unreel At Montreal Film Fest". ''
Fort Lauderdale News
The ''Sun Sentinel'' (also known as the ''South Florida Sun Sentinel'', known until 2008 as the ''Sun-Sentinel'', and stylized on its masthead as ''SunSentinel'') is the main daily newspaper of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Broward County, and ...
'', July 16, 1967. but the Canadian stream was controversial, with filmmakers often expressing their opposition to the competitive nature of the program.Wendy Michener, "Montreal Film Festival rides into the sunset"]. ''
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
'', April 2, 1968. The controversy was most pronounced in 1966, when the jury gave out numerous honorable mentions but declined to name any feature or short winners on the grounds that the films in competition did not measure up to the "concepts and standards of execution that Canadian film-makers have set themselves",Geoffrey James "Festival Awards Go Begging" ''
Montreal Star
''The Montreal Star'' was an English language, English-language Canada, Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike.
It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950 ...
'', August 5, 1966. and in 1967, when feature co-winners
Allan King
Allan Winton King, (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009), was a Canadian film director.
Life
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the Great Depression, King attended Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano.Jean Pierre Lefebvre
Jean Pierre Lefebvre (; born 17 August 1941) is a Canadian filmmaker. He is widely admired as "the godfather of independent Canadian cinema," particularly among young, independent filmmakers.
Biography
Jean Pierre Lefebvre studied literature a ...
announced a joint decision to share their prize money equally with the other two feature films in competition,
Pierre Perrault
Pierre Perrault (29 June 1927 – 23 June 1999) was a Canadian documentary film director with the National Film Board of Canada. Over his 40-year career, he directed 32 films and was one of Canada's most important filmmakers, although he ...
Michel Brault
Michel Brault, OQ (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the Nationa ...
's ''
Between Salt and Sweet Water
Between is a preposition. It may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Between'' (Frankmusik album), a 2013 album by Frankmusik
* "Between", a song by Jerry Cantrell from ''Boggy Depot''
* ''Between'' (TV series), a Canadian science fiction- ...
Montreal Gazette
''The Gazette'', also known as the ''Montreal Gazette'', is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper which is owned by Postmedia Network. It is published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
It is the only English-language daily newspape ...
'', August 14, 1967.
The 1967 jury's choices of Jacques Leduc's ''Chantal en vrac'' as the medium-length prize winner and Pierre Hébert's '' Op Hop - Hop Op'' as the short prize winner were also criticized, as both films had been heavily booed by the audiences at their screenings, and the festival that year had also been impacted by the Quebec Censor Board's banning of Larry Kent's film ''
High
High may refer to:
Science and technology
* Height
* High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area
* High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory
* High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift t ...
''.Eric H. Wilson, "Larry's At It Again: Movie-maker Kent reels opinions and talks about High, his new banned film". ''
Vancouver Sun
The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, and is the larg ...
'', August 11, 1967.
The festival was cancelled in 1968.
The new
Montreal World Film Festival
The Montreal World Film Festival (), commonly abbreviated MWFF in English or FFM in French, was an annual film festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 1977 to 2019.Claude Jutra
Claude Jutra (; March 11, 1930 – November 5, 1986) was a Canadian actor, film director, and screenwriter.
Montreal Star
''The Montreal Star'' was an English language, English-language Canada, Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike.
It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950 ...
'', August 12, 1963.
*Special Jury Prize, Feature:
Pierre Perrault
Pierre Perrault (29 June 1927 – 23 June 1999) was a Canadian documentary film director with the National Film Board of Canada. Over his 40-year career, he directed 32 films and was one of Canada's most important filmmakers, although he ...
and
Michel Brault
Michel Brault, OQ (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the Nationa ...
Montreal Star
''The Montreal Star'' was an English language, English-language Canada, Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike.
It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950 ...
Arthur Lipsett
Arthur Lipsett (May 13, 1936 – May 1, 1986) was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada. His short, avant-garde collage films, which he described as "neither underground nor conventional”, contain elements of narrative, d ...
, ''
Free Fall
In classical mechanics, free fall is any motion of a physical object, body where gravity is the only force acting upon it.
A freely falling object may not necessarily be falling down in the vertical direction. If the common definition of the word ...
'';
Gilles Carle
Gilles Carle, (July 31, 1928As fully funny, Carle had pleasure to always give himself one year less, and to let people think wrongly that he was born in 1929, "The Year of the Big World Crash": see on the Quebec French newspapers that many write ...
Gilles Carle
Gilles Carle, (July 31, 1928As fully funny, Carle had pleasure to always give himself one year less, and to let people think wrongly that he was born in 1929, "The Year of the Big World Crash": see on the Quebec French newspapers that many write ...
Montreal Star
''The Montreal Star'' was an English language, English-language Canada, Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike.
It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950 ...
Roman Kroitor
Roman Kroitor (December 12, 1926 – September 17, 2012) was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as a pioneer of ''Cinéma vérité'', as the co-founder of IMAX, and as the creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic 3D animation system. He ...
, ''
Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...
'';
Beryl Fox
Beryl Fox (born December 10, 1931) is a Canadian documentary film director and producer.
Biography
Beryl Fox was born in 1931 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She dropped out of high school a year before graduating and worked a series of selling and cleri ...
, ''
Summer in Mississippi
''Summer in Mississippi'' is a 1965 Canadian cinéma-vérité documentary short from Beryl Fox, produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and first shown on '' This Hour Has Seven Days''. It won the award for Best Film, TV Information, at ...
'';
Jean-Claude Labrecque
Jean-Claude Labrecque, (June 19, 1938 – May 31, 2019) was a Film director, director and cinematographer who learned the basics of filmmaking at the National Film Board of Canada.
Career
Jean-Claude Labrecque was born in Quebec City, Quebec, a ...
*Grand Prize, Feature: ''No award presented''
*Special Award, Feature:
David Secter
David Secter is a Canadian film director. He is best known for the 1965 film ''Winter Kept Us Warm'', the first English Canadian film ever screened at the Cannes Film Festival.Geoff Pevere"David Secter, the Varsity visionary: How a low-budget stu ...
Claude Jutra
Claude Jutra (; March 11, 1930 – November 5, 1986) was a Canadian actor, film director, and screenwriter.
, ''Comment savoir'';
Donald Brittain
Donald Code Brittain, (June 10, 1928 – July 21, 1989) was a film director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada.
Career
'' Fields of Sacrifice'' (1964) is considered Brittain's first major film as director.
His other notable ...
Memorandum
A memorandum (: memorandums or memoranda; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered"), also known as a briefing note, is a Writing, written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviation, ...
''; Claude Fournier, ''On sait où entrer Tony, mais c'est les notes'';
Mort Ransen
Mort Ransen (August 16, 1933 – September 4, 2021) was a Canadian film and television director, editor, screenwriter and producer, best known for his Genie Award-winning 1995 film ''Margaret's Museum''.
Early life
Ransen was born Moishe Socora ...
, ''No Reason to Stay''
*Short Film: ''No award presented''
*Short Film, Special Mentions:
Donald Shebib
Donald Everett Shebib (27 January 1938 – 5 November 2023) was a Canadian film and television director. Shebib was a central figure in the development of English Canadian cinema who made several short documentaries for the National Film Board ...
Jean Pierre Lefebvre
Jean Pierre Lefebvre (; born 17 August 1941) is a Canadian filmmaker. He is widely admired as "the godfather of independent Canadian cinema," particularly among young, independent filmmakers.
Biography
Jean Pierre Lefebvre studied literature a ...
Allan King
Allan Winton King, (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009), was a Canadian film director.
Life
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the Great Depression, King attended Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano.Warrendale''
*Grand Prize, Medium-Length: Jacques Leduc, ''Chantal en vrac''
*Short Film: Pierre Hébert, '' Op Hop - Hop Op''
*Special Jury Prize:
Martin Duckworth
Martin Duckworth (born March 8, 1933) is a Canadian documentary director and cinematographer who was on staff at the National Film Board from 1963 to 1970 and has continued to work with them as a freelance filmmaker. He was cinematographer on mor ...
and Jean Roy, ''Flight''
*Special Mentions:
Claude Jutra
Claude Jutra (; March 11, 1930 – November 5, 1986) was a Canadian actor, film director, and screenwriter.
Angel
An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...
'';
Michel Brault
Michel Brault, OQ (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the Nationa ...
, ''
Between Salt and Sweet Water
Between is a preposition. It may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Between'' (Frankmusik album), a 2013 album by Frankmusik
* "Between", a song by Jerry Cantrell from ''Boggy Depot''
* ''Between'' (TV series), a Canadian science fiction- ...