Canyon Cinema is an American
nonprofit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
for distributing independent, avant-garde, and artist-made films. After starting in the 1960s as an exhibition program, it grew to include a nationwide newsletter and a distribution cooperative. Its exhibition activities were split off to form the
San Francisco Cinematheque
San Francisco Cinematheque is a San Francisco-based film society for artist-made cinema. It was created in 1961 by a group of filmmakers, including Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand. This screening program grew into Canyon Cinema before being split ...
.
History
![Bruce Baillie 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Bruce_Baillie_2.jpg)
Canyon Cinema informally began in 1960 as an exhibition outlet in
Canyon, California
Canyon, formerly known as Sequoya, is an unincorporated community located near the border of Contra Costa and Alameda counties, in the U.S. state of California. It is situated between Oakland and Moraga in the San Francisco Bay Area. The communi ...
. Filmmaker
Bruce Baillie
Bruce Baillie (September 24, 1931 – April 10, 2020) was an American experimental filmmaker. He was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1931 and died on April 10, 2020 in Camano Island, Washington.
Work
Baillie founded Canyon Cinema in San Franc ...
got a projector and
army surplus
Military surplus are goods, usually matériel, that are sold or otherwise disposed of when held in excess or are no longer needed by the military. Entrepreneurs often buy these goods and resell them at surplus stores. Usually the goods sold by t ...
screen to put on shows in his backyard.
Chick Strand
Mildred "Chick" Strand (December 3, 1931 – July 11, 2009) was an American experimental filmmaker, "a pioneer in blending avant-garde techniques with documentary".Diana Burgess Fuller, Daniela Salvioni, ''Art/Women/California 1950-2000: Paralle ...
and
Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach (April 3, 1929 – April 16, 2012) was an American author, film critic, editor, and simple living adherent. He became famous due to his internationally successful semi-utopian novel '' Ecotopia'' (1975).
Life and work
Born ...
became involved, and they began holding screenings around the
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...
. Early programming included popular cinema, particularly from
Castle Films
Castle Films was a film company founded in California by former newsreel cameraman Eugene W. Castle (1897–1960) in 1924. Originally, Castle Films produced industrial and advertising films. Then in 1937, the company pioneered the production and d ...
, and avant-garde cinema but over time came to focus exclusively on the latter.
Callenbach, an editor for ''
Film Quarterly
''Film Quarterly'', a journal devoted to the study of film, television, and visual media, is published by University of California Press. It publishes scholarly analyses of international and Hollywood cinema as well as independent film, including d ...
'', had the idea to publish a regular newsletter. The first issue of the ''News'' came in December 1962, and the publication later became the ''Cinemanews'' and the ''Canyon Cinema News''.
Distribution activities began in 1966 with the establishment of a film distribution office. The Canyon Cinema Cooperative formally incorporated on February 26, 1967. Later that year, the growing exhibition program was made into Canyon Cinematheque. Income from distribution declined during the 1970s, resulting in a reorganization of Canyon's operations. The cinematheque was split off as San Francisco Cinematheque, which obtained nonprofit status in 1977.
Canyon expanded its mission in 1994 to include the sale of
videotape
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...
s. It later began offering
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
s for sale as well.
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
obtained Canyon's business archives, including ''Cinemanews'', in 2010. In 2013 the Canyon Cinema corporation was dissolved, following the transfer of its assets and operations to the Canyon Cinema Foundation, a
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
nonprofit.
Description
Canyon Cinema distributes a collection of 3,400 works from 280 artists. These include
8 mm,
Super 8,
16 mm, and
35 mm film prints as well as
digital media
Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...
. It holds a free salon series at the New Nothing Cinema.
References
External links
*
''Canyon Cinemazine''
{{Authority control
Cinema of the San Francisco Bay Area
Experimental film
Experimental film festivals
Filmmaker cooperatives
Film organizations in the United States
Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco
Artist cooperatives in the United States