thursday, March 20 / 6:30 pm / Ottawa Art Gallery

Program: Winter Kept Us Warm

Feature presentation \

“Six decades ago, a tiny film produced at the University of Toronto became an international sensation. David Secter’s Winter Kept Us Warm was the first film from English Canada to screen at Cannes, and one of the country’s earliest works of queer cinema. Produced while most of the cast and crew were still students, the modest black-and-white drama observes the growing attraction between two young men: extroverted Doug (John Labow) and reserved freshman Peter (Henry Tarvainen). Initially received as a curiosity, Winter Kept Us Warm now looks like a breakthrough in its treatment of queer characters as fully dimensional human beings.”

- Norm Wilner, Toronto International Film Festival

An edgy independent film made with virtually no budget, it not only pioneered the representation of gay reality in Canadian cinema, it also inspired other young filmmakers in Canada, including none other than Secter’s fellow Torontonian David Cronenberg, who states, “Secter had somehow hustled together a feature film that was intriguing because it was completely unprecedented. And then the film appeared, and I was stunned. Shocked. Exhilarated. It was an unbelievable experience. This movie was a very sweet film.”

This special 4K restoration of Winter Kept Us Warm was produced by Canadian International Pictures with funding provided by Telefilm Canada. IFFO is proud to present the Ottawa premiere of this key work in Canadian cinema history.