Check out Xtra arts editor Gordon Bowness’ conversation with MacIvor at last summer’s Writing Outside the Margins festival in Toronto.



Pasts Imperfect: Cinematheque Ontario, partnering with the Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, presents Pasts Imperfect: The Films of Daniel MacIvor from May 22 to May 26.

Featuring key films in the unique oeuvre of one of English Canada’s most acclaimed playwrights, performers and filmmakers, this retrospective opens with John Schlesinger’s seminal Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), to be introduced by MacIvor as the film that most impacted his work.

Other guests include filmmaker Amnon Buchbinder, who will introduce Whole New Thing (2005), a hilarious and poignant story that follows a precociously intelligent boy throughout his crush on his English teacher (played by MacIvor); and Laurie Lynd and Karen Lee Hall, director and producer of The Fairy Who Didn’t Want to Be a Fairy Anymore (1992), a Genie-award winning absurdist fantasy starring MacIvor (who also wrote the script).

The series also includes MacIvor’s emotionally devastating debut feature, Past Perfect (2002), and the assured and exquisitely performed Wilby Wonderful (2004), which features an ensemble cast of Canada's best-known actors (Paul Gross, Rebecca Jenkins) in roles MacIvor wrote especially for each of them.