Start your own cinema, avoid lineups!

It's hard to think that the "good ol' days" were only five years ago, but if you're talking about alternative movie houses and events in Vancouver that's unfortunately the case. The Blinding Light, Cinemuerte, Criminal Cinema and the Walk on the Wild Side showcase at the Vancouver International Film Festival all suffered unfortunate demises two to five years ago, causing the community to skid and hit a cinematic rock bottom.

After all, where is someone supposed to go if they want to see the Turkish Wizard of Oz but don't want to spend weeks hunting down a copy online? What if they want to watch Shogun Assassin but want to do it in a room of other like-minded samurai gore fans? What's a lonesome cinephile to do? Simple: do it yourself - and thanks to the DIY efforts of Evil Film School curator Mariko McDonald and Bizzaro Film-O-Rama's programmer/host Dave Bertrand, Vancouver's alternative movie fans have an alternative again.

It's not a matter of McDonald and Bertrand filling the void to turn a quick buck off a desperate community though; both of them are in it for the love of the art. "No one's making money, that's for sure," Bertrand says. "So far the attendance hasn't really gone much past fifteen. Our max capacity is probably a solid thirty or so. Might not have enough chairs. I hope it keeps getting bigger, but it can't get too big, cause we won't have room."

For McDonald, fifteen attendees crammed onto every spare bit of couch and floor was more-or-less the beginning. "I'd been putting on something similar in my apartment for a couple of years," says McDonald, "and was writing a column for Film Threat based on that and got quite a bit of feedback from readers asking where they could see these films or asking to attend the screenings. Since I could really only fit about 15 people into my living room with any level of comfort, moving it to Blim seemed like the best way to make it more accessible. I would like to see things grow a bit more, but considering the number of return attendees who aren't in my immediate circle of friends, I'd have to say I'm pretty happy."

But McDonald's vision steps beyond that of a cinematic social club. It has always been her intent that the evil Film School live up to its name and educate its attendees. "[It] is unique because I pretty much only show things that are REALLY obscure, but I also feature local filmmakers and shorts. I've also set-up a rule for myself that most or all films shown at Evil Film School will be things without distribution, so they wouldn't be the sort of thing you could just go to your local video store and rent. Although the night was inspired by having fun with my friends in my living room, the focus of the film night is more about education and exposure and creating a community for people who like things 'different.'

Bertrand, on the other hand, is unabashedly in the neighbourly corner and makes no bones about it. "This is the vibe I'm aiming for with the Bizzaro Film-O-Rama: a group of buddies, gathered in a living room - or an art gallery, as the case may be - on a hangover Sunday, drinking beers and having a laugh watching bizarre, lost and trashy movies."

Neither attitude is better or worse than the other - they're simply reflections of the goals and intents of the founders, and no matter which philosophy rings truer in anyone's personal preference, the end result is the same: the film nights build community. And to that end neither McDonald nor Bertrand is exclusivist; both of them express the viewpoint that there's room for more people to start their own nights with their own movies and plastic chairs. True to his social leanings, though, Bertrand phrases it most enthusiastically: "I want everybody in town to open up their living rooms and start screening their own weird collections. If you have a cool idea, just do it. Lay off the booze for an evening and plan something out. Anything is possible. Why wait and fuck around?"