With their final screening of the season at the Mayfair Cinema last Sunday (April 9), the Mountain View Film Group celebrated its 10th anniversary of bringing independent movies to Olds.
With their final screening of the season at the Mayfair Cinema last Sunday (April 9), the Mountain View Film Group celebrated its 10th anniversary of bringing independent movies to Olds.
The group came to be after Carien Vandenberg, a researcher working at Olds College, crossed paths with Doug Shaw, a teacher at Olds High School. Vandenberg, a newly arrived transplant from Ontario, happened to ask whether there was an independent film group in town. Funny that it should be Shaw fielding the question.
A few years earlier, Shaw himself had investigated starting such a group. While he found interest from people wanting to see the movies, he couldn't find anyone who wanted to organize them. So he tucked the information away. Until Vandenberg's fated question.
"When Carien said she was interested, we decided to go for it," he said.
In late April 2007, they duo decided they would start with one screening. They contacted the Mayfair Theatre, which has screened every showing for the group, and were told the Sunday afternoon slot was available. They contacted the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) organization and secured a copy of The Queen. They printed tickets, advertised, and crossed their fingers.
"We just bankrolled it," said Shaw. "We figured the most we could lose was $300 a piece."
They calculated that they needed 65 people to buy tickets, in order to break even.
"We ended up with 62," said Shaw. "I think we lost $16 each."
But they also ended up with a lot of positive feedback
"People were interested," said Shaw, "They said 'I've been waiting for something like this.' So we decided we'd make a go of it."
Like most of the group members and the moviegoers, neither Shaw nor Vandenberg had a background or a professional interest in the movie business.
"It was mostly just to provide a venue for independent films," he said. "There's some really good films out there that no one ever gets to see."
A decade later, there are plenty of people in the area who are getting the chance. The group now has eleven members, screens eight films a year – often to a sold-out crowd of more than 200 – and hosts a regular stop on the Banff Film Festival World Tour.
They are more than breaking even these days. The group has provided grants to local organizations, including the hospice society and the library. It supports a yearly student arts scholarship at Olds High School, and has recently purchased a Town of Olds legacy bench that will sit across the street from the theatre this summer.
Members meet twice a year to select the films the group will screen each season. Getting together for a potluck and popcorn, they watch dozens of trailers previewing the latest TIFF offerings, then vote for their favourites.
"We don't choose films that are only going to be super popular," said Ross Dabrusin, the group's current president. "Fortunately we are in a position where we choose what we think is going to be interesting. And the audience seems to come with us."
While Shaw remains active in the group, Vandenberg left Olds last December, returning to Ontario. Jaws dropped when she walked into the theatre Sunday afternoon, making a surprise appearance for the anniversary screening.
"I found some of my tribe members. People I really resonated with," Vandenberg told the audience before the screening. "We had an idea, and here we are, 10 years later."
"It was almost like the community responded by coming, and you keep coming, and coming, and coming. And now I'm coming."
After 10 years, she says this community of moviegoers is both the same and different.
"It's a different group every time, depending on the film or whose schedule accommodates that Sunday or the weather," she said. "And it's kinda the same. Different individual people, but a collective group that want to get together."
"I guess that's what a theatre is," said Vandenberg. "A way of bringing people together to forge some kind of new relationship. And an hour later, something will come from that."
For more information on the Mountain View Film Group you can find them online at http://www.mountainviewfilmgroup.ca.
