Artifacts are wonderfully problematic. They are liminal entries: physically present, but what do they represent? In this case, the image you see beside this note is of the CIFC’s newsletter for the 1988 Festival of Festivals (now TIFF). To Rudy Buttignol, one of the Caucus’s founders, it represents the origin of POV with the first articles commissioned by the organization to engage with Canadian documentaries in a critical fashion. Geoff Pevere—a highly respected journalist, broadcaster, and curator—and David Sobelman—a filmmaker, writer, and McLuhanite—contributed thoughtful pieces on nonfiction cinema to the newsletter, and POV was off to a flying start.
It took several more years for POV to emerge from the Caucus as its own entity, and we’re grateful to our documentary parents for birthing us. But the big success that emanated from the CIFC was, of course, Hot Docs. The most important documentary festival in North America was the baby of Paul Jay, one of the Caucus’ first chairs, who wanted to confer a higher status upon Canadian documentaries while raising money for the organization.
The third major initiative, I would argue, was the creation of the DOC Institute, which has played a significant role in aiding documentary filmmakers in Toronto and, through the sharing of ideas, across the country. The Institute’s Breakthrough Development Lab set up a rigorous system that trained filmmakers to generate projects that could be marketed and sold in Canada and internationally. That success led to an array of workshops and seminars that have greatly expanded the impact of DOC in the filmmaking culture.
DOC has shown itself to be a visionary institution through these and other brilliant initiatives.
