As we reach the end of the year, we can expect many end-of-year lists, capturing the “best” or “worst” of a particular 12 months in some expert’s opinion.
Personally, I enjoy many of these meanderings, and, as I work in film, have been ingesting many of the critic’s polls and lists of best films of 2022 with great relish.
Let me introduce myself as the lead programmer at Sudbury Indie Cinema. Our cinema — affectionally nicknamed “The Indie” by film-lovers — is not-for-profit, single-screen movie house located in a heritage building on Mackenzie Street in Uptown, just up the road from the main branch of the Greater Sudbury Public Library.
We are dedicated to bringing the best in independent cinema to Sudbury on a year-round basis. I’ve just completed some end-of-year stats which I want to share, as we have a certain accountability to the community we serve, and the stats are pretty interesting to me, so I thought they may be to some of you culture-lovers as well.
First, in 2022, we had one month-long mandated closure from early January-early February — like all movie theatres across Ontario — in response to the pandemic.
Since then however, we will have been open on a continuous basis. In fact, everyday save for Christmas and Boxing Day we were open.
In 2022, we brought a total of 156 unique feature films to Sudbury. We hosted five regional films festivals, and a new genre convention (SICK, the Sudbury Indie Creature Kon).
This past year, we offered more than 900 screenings to the public. A cool fact I learned analysing the data is that of those films, a whopping 79 per cent had their Northern Ontario premiere with us.
Heck, we even beat out Toronto several times for Ontario or Canadian premieres! This is significant to me as one of the original proponents behind the concept of an independent cinema for Sudbury, because back in 2013 we argued that without an independent cinema much of the world’s best films would bypass Sudbury for a theatrical release. Now we are finding they would have bypassed Sudbury entirely.
We have programming priorities in our film selection, as well in terms of lesser-heard voices. Interestingly in 2022, more than half the films we programmed were women-directed; 20 per cent were French language: 25 per cent were Canadian, and; 25 per cent were documentaries. As one basis of comparison, Women and Hollywood is tracking film facts for 2022 and found that only 8.9 per cent of film directors nominated for top awards are women.
Now, 2022 was a challenging year for us as an indoor arts venue as it was other small businesses in town, for most people, and our community as a whole.
On behalf of Sudbury Indie Cinema, I want to give a warm thank you to the people of Sudbury for supporting us, for encouraging us, and for blessing our humble venue with your presence for community events and film screenings, when you felt to was safe to do so. We are thrilled to have snagged so many of the Critic’s choices for best films of 2022 to share with you. See you @ The Indie!
Beth Mairs is the founder and lead programmer of the Sudbury Independent Cinema Co-op, northeastern Ontario’s first not-for-profit independent cinema. See what’s playing at the Indie by clicking here.
