Seth Feldman appointed as new Robarts Chair

By Nishat Karim

The author and broadcaster of more than 20 ear catching radio documentaries and a frequent arts commentator for CBC Radio and The Globe and Mail, has been appointed to the prestigious Robarts Chair for 2000-2001. Professor Seth Feldman of the Department of Film and Video at York will develop and present his project "The Triumph of Canadian Cinema", which will demonstrate that Canadian cinema has moved from a long formative period, into an era where it consistently contributes work of genuine worth to the international film and television community.

Feldman would like to take a break from the frequent despair that surrounds filmmaking in Canada and, instead, celebrate the achievements of the films and filmmakers themselves. "The film industry has done more than just survive. It has provided a way of life not only for producers, directors, actors and all sorts of related crafts but for those of us who talk about its products," explained Feldman.

As a widely published writer in national and international cinemas himself, Feldman programmed a retrospective of Canadian Cinema in 1998, at the China Film Archive in Beijing. With the presentation of 20 Canadian feature films and an audience of up to 2000 at each showing, the international event was marked as one of the most successful of its kind.

"There is a way for bright, lucky and aggressive people to get their films made in Canada. It's not easy, but it's easier than it was, and because of that Canadian film as a whole has become more pleasurable to watch, teach and find," remarked Feldman.

As part of "The Triumph of Canadian Cinema" project, four panels of presentations will be conducted over the year by key Canadian film and television writers, directors and producers. They will focus on feature filmmaking; documentary filmmaking; television; and film policy. Complementing the panels will be a series of public screenings of key works with the makers in attendance.

"There are as many good Canadian filmmakers as there are Canadian poets and painters - and they not only produce feature films, but also documentaries, animation, experimental films, and in fact work in every nook and cranny of the moving image," said Feldman.

Presenting a Robarts Lecture in the spring of 2001 himself, Feldman will discuss writing in contemporary Canadian film and television.

Best known as a writer on Canadian culture communications, Feldman has also acquired a reputation for his radio documentaries on CBC Radio's "IDEAS". His most recent program, "Wagging the Post-Modern Dog" began with him obtaining his first canine at the tender age of 47, and ended with an exhaustive cultural survey of the dog world.

Among students of Canadian Cinema, Feldman is known as co-editor of Canadian Film Reader (Peter Martin Associates, 1977), the first anthology of articles on Canadian Cinema; the editor of a second collection entitled Take Two (Irwin, 1984); and the co-editor of a third collection, Dialogue: Canadian and Quebec Cinema (Mediatexte, 1987). Along with his presentation in Beijing, Feldman has programmed works such as the Canadian Images Film Festival and The Grierson Film Seminar.

With his 25 years of extensive background in Canadian film studies, Feldman's appointment to the Chair will provide a stimulating forum for the examination of methods whereby Canada can continue to express itself in a highly globalized and technological medium.

Feldman has also served in various organizations. He is a founder and past president of the Film Studies Association of Canada and has served as Chair of the Canadian Association of Fine Arts Deans and as Canada's representative to the International Council of Fine Arts Deans.