25 years of Kino | For the beauty of the cinematographic gesture

It’s not every day that we celebrate our quarter century. The talent incubator and development accelerator Kino Montréal celebrates its 25th anniversary this month. A look back at these years of creative excitement and technological challenges with Christian Laurence, witness to the beginnings of the collective movement, and Annelise Jolly, representative of the new guard.

“To fully understand Kino, you have to go back to 1999,” Christian Laurence immediately tells us, founding member of what was at the time the result of an immeasurable desire to create. On the eve of the famous “bug” that never happened, the idea of ​​a motivating structure emerges, which promotes solidarity between artists and forces them to “kick each other in the ass” to shoot their short film projects . First objective: make one film per month until the turn of the century. Like a training plan to build cinematic muscles.

With his friends Jéricho Jeudy, Stéphane Lafleur and Eza Paventi, they then founded Kino, a true UFO of the cultural world, a community whose members help each other to produce cinematographic works on (very) low budget, in a non-competitive spirit, of freedom and kindness. “The first time, there were 12 of us. The second, there were 27 of us. And the third, there were 49 of us! We said to ourselves: there, I think we have something,” says Christian Laurence.

Annelise Jolly, who is celebrating her first year as director of Kino, wishes more than anything to remain faithful to the “punk spirit” at the origin of the phenomenon of spontaneous creation. The famous slogan “Do well with nothing, do better with little, do it now” still holds true. “I believe that we must go back to basics, that is to say, support, accompany, advise the next generation and offer them a playground to experiment, on which it is allowed to make mistakes,” affirms the one who also the intention of “completely professionalizing the organization” and possibly being able to pay artists.

Continuous artistic experimentation

Kino’s 25 years of existence, which will be celebrated Saturday evening as part of the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, have not been without major upheavals. We remember that in the early 2000s, there was neither Facebook nor YouTube, and that editing was far from being accessible to everyone who knew how to ride.

Even if this field has since evolved, the distribution of films in theaters is still one of the great attractions of the movement: young filmmakers can finally meet their audience in a setting other than those of school and festivals. “Even today, it’s often the first opportunity for them to broadcast a creation on the big screen and that’s super important,” says Annelise Jolly.

But beyond the screenings – which can also serve as a showcase for new talents – the essence of Kino lies in the approach. The important thing is to make art. “If cinema is going to see a play at the Maison symphonique with an orchestra, in a room with extraordinary acoustics, Kino is going to Les Foufs to see a punk band playing on rotten amps with guitars that they will eventually destroy. Both have value,” illustrates Christian Laurence.

The “great pollination”

“We should study this from an epidemiological angle! », spontaneously says Christian Laurence when asked about the paths that Kino has taken to also expand internationally. It is impossible to know how many cells of the movement exist today, because each of them is independent. One thing is certain, there has been a “great pollination”.

How to explain such success? This simple concept, which fits in the palm of one hand and which “can be adapted, regardless of the scale of the community”, surely has something to do with it. But our interlocutors are unanimous: people above all need to come together and exchange ideas. “Kino is a movement of humanity, empathy, commitment and integration and we can never have too much of that,” summarizes Christian Laurence.

Kino will celebrate its 25th^e anniversary on Saturday, February 24 from 7 p.m. as part of the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma at the Cinémathèque québécoise. On the program: cocktail, reunion, and exclusive screenings.

Visit the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma website

Visit the Kino website

Kino, talent incubator

Several filmmakers whose work stands out today have a little, a lot or passionate experience with Kino. Here’s what some of them say about it.

Stéphane Lafleur

At the time, Kino responded to our desire to keep fit and keep the cinema muscle active, to be in an almost constant context of creation. It was a testing ground to explore and try things that I wouldn’t have dared to do elsewhere.

Stéphane Lafleur (viking, You are sleeping Nicole)

Lawrence Côté-Collins

Kino completely transformed my life. […] Kinoïtes, we are hands-on people and resourceful people. Because we build ourselves through adversity and all the difficulties to overcome become springboards for creativity. This makes us extremely efficient.

Lawrence Côté-Collins (Bungalow, Split)

Pascal Plante

It was with Kino that I learned to be the guardian of good energy. Kinoïtes are volunteers, so it’s so important to have fun. Even to this day, even when I make more structured films with big crews, it’s important that fun remains in the equation.

Pascal Plante (The red rooms, Nadia Butterfly)