Curated & Introduced by Matthew Rankin -  Free Admission !

When pioneering filmmaker Roman Kroitor passed away recently at age 85, Canada lost one of its most inventive filmmakers. “A renowned technical innovator, (co-creator of IMAX) brilliant editor and pioneering director." (Liz Czach, Canadian Film Encyclopedia)

His body of work is matchless for its influence on direct cinema and documentary filmmaking in Canada. Though born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan his family moved to Winnipeg where he received an MA in psychology and philosophy from the University of Manitoba. Film scholar and independent filmmaker Matthew Rankin will introduce this special screening of Kroitor’s finest work including his classics Lonely Boy, a terrific cinema vérité portrait of teen heartthrob Paul Anka, Paul Tomkowicz: Street rail-way Switchman, an absorbing profile of a Polish born Canadian whose job it is to clean the railway tracks in a cold Winnipeg winter and Universe, an incredible film which won 23 awards for its realistic depiction of outer space which influenced Stanley Kubrick in creating 2001: A Space Odyssey.

"Roman Kroitor was a visionary, an unlikely talent for a man to possess who rose to prominence as one of the NFB's finest cinema verite filmmakers. He created a huge buzz at Montreal 's legendary EXPO 67 with the beautiful and philosophical multi-projector-and-screen-film essay In The Labyrinth....Roman Kroitor may have left us but his legacy in words and images lives on."

-Marc Glassman, Point of View