Cinémathèque québécoise

The Cinémathèque québécoise is a film conservatory in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its purpose is to preserve, document, film and television footage and related documents and artifacts for future use by the public. The Cinémathèque's collections include over 35,000 films from all eras and countries, 25,000 television programmes, 28,000 posters, 600,000 photos, 2,000 pieces of historical equipment, 15,000 scripts and production documents, 45,000 books, 3,000 magazine titles, thousands of files as well as objects, props and costumes. The conservatory also includes a film theatre which screens rarely seen film and video.

It is located at 355, boulevard De Maisonneuve (355, De Maisonneuve Boulevard East), in the city's Quartier Latin. The Institut national de l'image et du son is located next door.

History

The Connaissance du cinéma, soon after renamed the Cinémathèque canadienne, was founded in 1963.

In 1971 the institution was renamed Cinémathèque québécoise.

The Cinémathèque complex was extensively redesigned from 1994 to 1997 by the architectural firm of Saucier + Perrotte. Awards for the design included the 1999 Governor General's Award for Architecture.

In 2017 the Cinémathèque québécoise collaborated with the Vancouver Cinematheque, the Toronto International Film Festival and Library and Archives Canada mounted a retrospective of 150 culturally significant films.

Status and Organization

Mission

The Cinémathèque québécoise is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the cinematographic, televisual, and audiovisual heritage of Quebec, as well as international animated cinema.

For these two fields of expertise, the organization's mission is to acquire, document, preserve, and showcase audiovisual works in and of themselves as well as all the related elements that shed light on their artistic, aesthetic, sociological, economic, and technical contexts (e.g., production documents, scripts, photographs, press articles, scientific and historical documentation, etc.).

The Cinémathèque québécoise also seeks to collect significant works of Canadian and world cinema in order to make them accessible in a cultural and educational aim.

Collections

History

The Cinémathèque's collections truly began to take shape in 1967 following two events organized by the institution. First, a retrospective of Canadian cinema, which took place during the festivities of the Canadian Centennial, projected copies of films that formed the core of the Cinémathèque's collections.Cinémathèque québécoise., Véronneau, Pierre, 1946- et Véronneau, Pierre, 1946-, , Montréal, La Cinémathèque, 1988, 123 p. (ISBN 2-89207-031-7 et 9782892070316, OCLC 26857733
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), p. 65 A few months later, a world retrospective of animated cinema was held at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition. For this event, the institution acquired 250 silent animated films by American pioneers in the medium,François Auger, René Beauclair, Louise Beaudet, Robert Daudelin, Alain Gauthier, Pierre Jutras, Nicole Laurin, Pierre Véronneau, et Réal La Rochelle, «  », ''Copie Zéro'', no 38, octobre 1988
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) which formed the base of its animation collection.

In order to pursue the development of its animation collection, the Cinémathèque signed an agreement with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1968 according to which the animated films produced by the network would be given to the Cinémathèque, accompanied by documents such as the negatives and positives of the films, storyboards, cut-outs, drawings and soundtracks.

In 1969, the Cinémathèque acquired the library of Canadian filmmaker Guy L. Coté, composed of books, periodicals, and press clippings. The collection was managed by the Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec so that it could be accessible to the public via its location at 360 rue McGill. In 1981, the collection was moved to the current Cinémathèque building, where it became part of the Médiathèque Guy-L.-Coté.

During the 1970s, the Cinémathèque sought to raise awareness among Québécois filmmakers of the value of the preservation of their films and related documents. In 1974, an inventory of the institution's photography collection revealed the presence of 5,000 photographs related to international films, 460 related to Canadian cinema, 300 related to animated films, and 1,500 related to important personalities in film.

The 1980s would see a sustained growth in the Cinémathèque's catalogue, with several hundred films coming in each month. When the Cinémathèque moved to a new location in 1982, the National Film Board of Canada donated most of the animated films that it had produced to the institution. The Cinémathèque also kept nearly 1000 scripts and agreed with the Société générale du cinéma in 1985 to receive all of its scripts three years after their releases. Between 1984 and 1988, France Film, Prisma Film, Jacques Lamoureux, Daniel Kieffer, and Bertrand Carrière all made significant donations of their photography to the institution.

In 1992, a donation made by Camille Moulatlet, technician for Radio Canada, significantly enriched the institution's collection of equipment with a contribution of 63 cameras and 200 projectors.

In 1994, the Cinémathèque officially expanded its mission to include television and thus decided to acquire programs produced by independent producers for its collections.Jean Gagnon, « La collection Moses Znaimer de téléviseurs anciens de la Cinémathèque québécoise », ''Cinémas : Revue d'études cinématographiques / Cinémas : Journal of Film Studies'', vol. 23, nos 2-3, 2013, p. 201–228 (ISSN 1705-6500 et 1181-6945, DOI https://doi.org/10.7202/1015191ar
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, consulté le 30 décembre 2018)

In the late 1990s, the Cinémathèque adopted acquisition politics according to which its collections would only accept donations, not deposits, and its film collections would no longer accept film positives and magnetic scraps, becoming more restrictive in terms of the types of production materials it would accept into its vaults (workprints, film negatives, etc.).Pierre Verroneau (L'avenir de la mémoire cinématographique), ''La Cinémathèque québécoise : des collections, des questions et des défis,'' Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2013, p. 79-92

Moses Znaimer's donations between 2003 and 2007, composed of 289 old television sets, also marked an important moment in the Cinémathèque's collection of equipment.

In 2008, the Cinémathèque's mission was further expanded to include other new forms of media. Three years later, in 2011, the institution acquired the Centre de recherche et de documentation of the Daniel Langlois Foundation.Â
Communiqué de presse
Â
archive
, sur www.fondation-langlois.org, 11 octobre 2011 (consulté le 27 janvier 2019)

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cinematheque quebecoise
1963 establishments in Quebec
Buildings and structures in Montreal
Cinema museums
Cinema of Quebec
Cinemas and movie theatres in Quebec
Culture of Montreal
Film archives in Canada
Film organizations in Canada
Film preservation
Museums in Montreal
Organizations based in Montreal
Quartier Latin, Montreal
Festival venues in Canada