Pacific Cinémathèque

The Cinematheque (legal name: Pacific Cinémathèque Pacifique), founded in 1972, is a Canadian charity and non-profit film institute, media education centre, and film exhibitor based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The organization's mission is to foster the appreciation of the art and legacy of cinema, and to advance critical thinking and thoughtful education about the impact of moving-images and screen-based media in society. Programs and collections The Cinematheque offers a year-round program of curated film exhibitions (more than 500 screenings annually ) devoted to important classic and contemporary Canadian and world cinema, and encompassing film and moving images in their various narrative/dramatic, documentary, animated, and experimental forms. These presentations include retrospectives of important directors, significant national cinemas, and historical film movements; new Canadian and international films; revivals and restorations of masterpieces of world cinema; major international touring exhibitions; showcases of avant-garde and other artist-driven moving-image work; and guest appearances by filmmakers, film historians, and cultural critics. The Cinematheque's. History The Cinematheque was one of several Vancouver cultural organizations to emerge from the vibrant avant-garde and alternative arts scene that developed on Canada's West Coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s. An important hub of this activity was Vancouver's Intermedia Society , a multidisciplinary collective, founded in 1967, of visual, performance, and media artists, including those interested in experimental, poetic, and "personal" cinema. In 1969, the Intermedia Film Co-op, a distributor and presenter of Vancouver-made independent film, emerged as an offshoot. In 1971, Kirk Tougas, a young Vancouver filmmaker and film programmer and.