Preserving the history of Canadian experimental film, on Blu-ray | Canada Voices

In December, a rich, colourful 16-millimetre film was projected onto the screen at the University of Toronto’s Innis Town Hall: doors opening at Union Station, yuletide festivities onboard the lively dining car of a VIA train bound to Charlottetown, a family catching up on Christmas Eve, siblings bopping each other over the head with presents. And finally, the train ride back home to Toronto, and a cab ride to a Jarvis St. apartment.

The film was Richard Hancox’s 1978 work Home For Christmas. Part travelogue, part documentary, it is the latest release from Black Zero, a Toronto-based company dedicated to preserving and releasing experimental Canadian cinema from the 1960s and beyond.

Black Zero is the brainchild of Stephen Broomer, a film preservationist and programmer who teaches at the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University. Broomer became involved in film preservation while completing his master’s degree; he wanted to study films that weren’t readily available.

“I would discover films that were deserving of a wider audience, films that were generally not in distribution of any kind,” he said.

After working on the restoration of Arthur Lipsett’s Strange Codes, a collaboration with the Cinémathèque Québécoise, Broomer realized these hallmarks of Canadian cinema needed a life outside of the occasional screening.

“It always troubled me when I see the amount of care and work that goes into a film’s restoration process, the amount of wounds that get reopened for artists and their families when work gets restored. Because it means revisiting the past, and if all of that work leads to a screening to 10 very appreciative people in a microcinema, it can be a letdown for the artists. The idea of the work having a continued life is a positive one. They need to be accessible.”

Since its launch in 2023, Black Zero has released eight Blu-ray collections highlighting the work of important Canadian filmmakers such as Hancox, Lipsett, Keith Lock, R. Bruce Elder, Richard Kerr, Josephine Massarella and John Hofsess.

Hancox attended last month’s screening of Home for Christmas and was surprised by the audience’s reaction. “I wondered at this point, 50 years after the film was made, if people could still relate to it. It’s just my family. Could people really relate to someone else’s family?”

The film impressed attendee Mark Hanson, product manager at Toronto’s Bay Street Video. “I was blown away by his use of experimental shooting and editing techniques within this supercozy personal document of his trip home for the holidays,” he said. “Even audiences not particularly acquainted with experimental filmmaking will find much to relate to.”

The 16-millimetre print was digitally scanned by Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. “They had seen the film and offered,” said Hancox, who was amazed by its new Blu-ray presentation. “The quality is just striking.”

Filmmaker Lock, one of the founders of the Toronto Filmmakers Co-op (now known as the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto) also worked with film elements from Library and Archives Canada for the Black Zero release of his 1975 experimental film, Everything Everywhere Again Alive, documenting an artist commune at Buck Lake, near Orillia, Ont.

What stands out for Lock are the many bonus features included on Black Zero’s discs. “These releases are contextualizing the films and helping audiences appreciate them for what they are,” he said.

Everything Everywhere Again Alive, for example, features an audio commentary; a documentary titled Return to Buck Lake; a video essay by Broomer appraising the film’s place in Canadian cinematic history; and liner notes by filmmaker Anna Gronau.

“I see the creation of massive amounts of supplementary material as integral to my mission,” said Broomer, who has contributed video essays and audio commentaries for other distribution companies, including Canadian International Pictures and Severin Films.

The boutique Blu-ray industry has boomed in recent years. Vinegar Syndrome’s Cinematographe label, launched in 2024, has already released long-unavailable titles such Little Darlings and Who Killed Teddy Bear. Severin’s The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle, a 24-film retrospective produced by Kier-La Janisse and released in 2023 was a landmark in cult film exploration.

At Bay Street Video, Hanson has seen an increased demand for physical media put out by both long-established publishers and independent labels such as Black Zero.

“Stephen is doing heroic work with Black Zero in restoring and releasing so many treasures of Canadian experimental film, especially since experimental filmmaking in general is often lacking for home video options,” he said.

Black Zero’s Blu-rays are intentionally stocked on the store’s new release shelves.

“We strive to shine a light on the work being done by film preservationists and curators here in the city,” Hanson said. He also lauds the work of Canadian International Pictures, which has released restorations of early films by Denys Arcand and Larry Kent; as well as Gold Ninja Video, whose Open Doom Crescendo, by Montreal filmmaker Terry Chiu, was released in December.

Broomer is excited about his coming Blu-rays, which will include Black Zero’s first boxed-set, and he’s proud of the collaborations with these legendary filmmakers. He keeps track of listings for his releases on Letterboxd, an online forum for cinephiles.

“There are steady loggings, ratings and some reviews. I don’t care if they’re good or bad,” he said with a laugh. “When people are engaging, my work is done.”

He funds Black Zero out of pocket. With print runs of 1,000 discs for each release, it’s an expensive passion project.

“Some of us are just driven by these beautiful, funny and weird offbeat visions that we encounter in cinema, and want to share them.”

Special to The Globe and Mail