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

Canyon Cinema informally began in 1960 as an exhibition outlet in Canyon, California. 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 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, videoca ...

s. It later began offering DVDs 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 conside ...

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 ...

nonprofit.

Description

Canyon Cinema distributes a collection of 3,400 works from 280 artists. These include 8 mm, Super 8,

16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...

, 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