Photo: Courtesy of Calgary Economic Development
Photo: Courtesy of Calgary Economic Development
It was a Friday night screening of a documentary film in September 2015 at the Globe Theatre, but for Steve Schroeder, it was everything a film festival is capable of being.
The doc in question was Guantanamo’s Child, which told the story of Omar Khadr, the Canadian teenage boy who’d been charged with murder as a 15-year-old during the Afghan war, and sent to Guantanamo Bay until he was relocated to a prison near Edmonton, before being released.
Khadr’s story was controversial and widely-covered. Part of the terms of his release from prison were that he couldn’t leave the house of his attorney, where he was living—until that Friday night at the Calgary International Film Festival.
That’s because at the conclusion of the screening, which was full of hundreds of Calgary film lovers, CIFF Executive Director Schroeder stood up, grabbed a mic, and introduced Khadr, who turned out to be a charming, gracious man.
“The audience didn’t know he was going to be there,” Schroeder says.
“He’s a very controversial figure but when you meet someone in person, who has been the subject of so much international news, and you get a feel for who they really are, it’s a very different experience than what you’ve heard in the media.”
It wasn’t just a film screening. It was news.
And for Schroeder, it was a snapshot of what the Calgary International Film Festival is all about, namely the audience experience.
A lineup outside the Globe Cinema | Photo: Courtesy of the Calgary International Film Festival
Calgary’s film festival rarely features A-list, Hollywood names. Instead, it’s a film festival that brings the world’s cinema stories to screens every fall, in the form of an assortment of languages, sensibilities, lengths—many are shorts—and formats.
“It’s an audience-focused festival,” Schroeder says. “And a public-focused festival.
“We’re very much connected to and supporting the industry,” he adds, “but really, when we looked at the type of programming we were going to do, what we were going to put on the screen, how we were going to organize those films, where we were going to screen them, what types of cool fun events we program around films themselves, what type of off-screen events happen—like tours, talks, lectures, happenings, all those things—the number one question we ask is, how does this make the audience experience more enjoyable? More exciting?
“How does this invite the audience themselves to be greater champions of filmmakers overall?”
Concentrated on Stephen Avenue, in the blocks around the Globe, and the Eau Claire Market, the festival is one of those local events that connects to a specific community of film-lovers.
Moving ahead, as the city looks for ways to animate its downtown spaces, Schroeder hopes to grow CIFF’s municipal footprint, and to find ways to engage an even larger community to attend events such as Guantanamo’s Child, or its red carpet premieres (which frequently take place at larger venues, such as Jack Singer Hall or The Grand), or its kid-friendly fare.
Calgary International Film Festival Executive Director Steve Schroeder with Mayor Nenshi | Photo: Courtesy of the Calgary International Film Festival
“People ask me, when is the Calgary Film Fest going to have the same presence in the city as the Calgary Stampede, and I say, we’re working on it,” Schroeder says.
“But we’re getting there. We’re definitely getting there. It’s just one festival at a time.”
In 2019, as it turns out, the 20th, Schroeder is thinking, it might be fun to dial up the festival’s profile and party.
“For our 20th anniversary, we’re working on having some more recognizable names to attend the festival, because we know that’s fun for audiences,” he says.
“That’s really appropriate for celebration—and if going forward, the festival grows and we’re able to attract more celebrities and more well-known names from the screen world, then that’s great. And that totally plays into and supports the direction we’re going—but the important distinction is, our main mission is not bringing celebrities.
“We don’t wake up in the morning and go, how can we bring celebrities to Calgary?
“We think, how can we make a great film festival experience that’s a celebration for people who love movies? That’s what we try to do.”
Schroeder is happy to let his festival full of timely, thought-provoking, contentious cinema dictate who shows up to answer questions from Calgary film-lovers, much the way Khadr did that Friday night in 2015.
“It felt like a significant moment in Canadian history, really,” he says. “Events like that make you realize you’re part of something much bigger.
“These stories onscreen are part of much bigger stories,” he continues. “And it keeps me doing what I do.”
A lineup outside the Globe Cinema | Photo: Courtesy of the Calgary International Film Festival
It was a Friday night screening of a documentary film in September 2015 at the Globe Theatre, but for Steve Schroeder, it was everything a film festival is capable of being. The doc in question was Guantanamo’s Child. It told the story of Omar Khadr, the Canadian teenage boy who’d been charged with murder as a 15-year-old during the Afghan war, and sent to Guantanamo Bay until he was relocated to a prison near Edmonton, before being released. Khadr’s story was controversial and widely-covered. Part of the terms of his release from prison were that he couldn’t leave the house of his attorney, where he was living—until that Friday night at the Calgary International Film Festival.
It was a Friday night screening of a documentary film in September 2015 at the Globe Theatre, but for Steve Schroeder, it was everything a film festival is capable of being.
The doc in question was Guantanamo’s Child, which told the story of Omar Khadr, the Canadian teenage boy who’d been charged with murder as a 15-year-old during the Afghan war, and sent to Guantanamo Bay until he was relocated to a prison near Edmonton, before being released.
Khadr’s story was controversial and widely-covered. Part of the terms of his release from prison were that he couldn’t leave the house of his attorney, where he was living—until that Friday night at the Calgary International Film Festival.
That’s because at the conclusion of the screening, which was full of hundreds of Calgary film lovers, CIFF Executive Director Schroeder stood up, grabbed a mic, and introduced Khadr, who turned out to be a charming, gracious man.
“The audience didn’t know he was going to be there,” Schroeder says.
“He’s a very controversial figure but when you meet someone in person, who has been the subject of so much international news, and you get a feel for who they really are, it’s a very different experience than what you’ve heard in the media.”
It wasn’t just a film screening. It was news.
And for Schroeder, it was a snapshot of what the Calgary International Film Festival is all about, namely the audience experience.
A lineup outside the Globe Cinema | Photo: Courtesy of the Calgary International Film Festival
Calgary’s film festival rarely features A-list, Hollywood names. Instead, it’s a film festival that brings the world’s cinema stories to screens every fall, in the form of an assortment of languages, sensibilities, lengths—many are shorts—and formats.
“It’s an audience-focused festival,” Schroeder says. “And a public-focused festival.
“We’re very much connected to and supporting the industry,” he adds, “but really, when we looked at the type of programming we were going to do, what we were going to put on the screen, how we were going to organize those films, where we were going to screen them, what types of cool fun events we program around films themselves, what type of off-screen events happen—like tours, talks, lectures, happenings, all those things—the number one question we ask is, how does this make the audience experience more enjoyable? More exciting?
“How does this invite the audience themselves to be greater champions of filmmakers overall?”
Concentrated on Stephen Avenue, in the blocks around the Globe, and the Eau Claire Market, the festival is one of those local events that connects to a specific community of film-lovers.
Moving ahead, as the city looks for ways to animate its downtown spaces, Schroeder hopes to grow CIFF’s municipal footprint, and to find ways to engage an even larger community to attend events such as Guantanamo’s Child, or its red carpet premieres (which frequently take place at larger venues, such as Jack Singer Hall or The Grand), or its kid-friendly fare.
Calgary International Film Festival Executive Director Steve Schroeder with Mayor Nenshi | Photo: Courtesy of the Calgary International Film Festival
“People ask me, when is the Calgary Film Fest going to have the same presence in the city as the Calgary Stampede, and I say, we’re working on it,” Schroeder says.
“But we’re getting there. We’re definitely getting there. It’s just one festival at a time.”
In 2019, as it turns out, the 20th, Schroeder is thinking, it might be fun to dial up the festival’s profile and party.
“For our 20th anniversary, we’re working on having some more recognizable names to attend the festival, because we know that’s fun for audiences,” he says.
“That’s really appropriate for celebration—and if going forward, the festival grows and we’re able to attract more celebrities and more well-known names from the screen world, then that’s great. And that totally plays into and supports the direction we’re going—but the important distinction is, our main mission is not bringing celebrities.
“We don’t wake up in the morning and go, how can we bring celebrities to Calgary?
“We think, how can we make a great film festival experience that’s a celebration for people who love movies? That’s what we try to do.”
Schroeder is happy to let his festival full of timely, thought-provoking, contentious cinema dictate who shows up to answer questions from Calgary film-lovers, much the way Khadr did that Friday night in 2015.
“It felt like a significant moment in Canadian history, really,” he says. “Events like that make you realize you’re part of something much bigger.
“These stories onscreen are part of much bigger stories,” he continues. “And it keeps me doing what I do.”
This is greater than many other industries, including retail trade; accommodation and food services; professional, scientific and technical; administrative and support services; wholesale trade; crop and animal production; and oil and gas extraction.
Research Note: The Economic Impact of Arts Organizations Supported by Calgary Arts Development, Calgary Arts Development, June 2014.
Eleven years ago, Calgary residents Angel Guerra and her friend Angela Dione found themselves at a flea market in West Hillhurst, where hundreds of people drop by every Sunday, to pick over an assortment of old records, hardcover books, vintage clothing, hockey memorabilia, used bicycles, coins, and other collector’s items. It inspired Guerra and Dione to try a variation on the same theme. What if they arranged a similar event, only instead of selling memorabilia, it would feature young artists selling new work? With local bands playing live? And DJs spinning records?
Eleven years ago, Calgary residents Angel Guerra and her friend Angela Dione found themselves at a flea market in West Hillhurst, where hundreds of people drop by every Sunday, to pick over an assortment of old records, hardcover books, vintage clothing, hockey memorabilia, used bicycles, coins, and other collector’s items.
It inspired Guerra and Dione to try a variation on the same theme.
What if they arranged a similar event, only instead of selling memorabilia, it would feature young artists selling new work? With local bands playing live? And DJs spinning records?
“Dione really had a heart for the artists and seeing it be an artists space–so we put all our ideas together for live music, community, local commerce and art,” Guerra says.
“That was kind of the initial conversation we had and from those passions came Market Collective.”
Dion and Guerra each chipped in $100, rented a room in the carpenter’s union hall on 10th Street in Kensington, and Market Collective was born.
The first musician to perform at the first Market Collective was Reuben Bullock, who went on to form Reuben and the Dark.
Back then, the market was an intermittent event—a pop-up—that relied on locating appropriate and affordable temporary spaces at a time when available space was at a premium in boomtown Calgary.
Eventually, the collective moved from that union hall, which is now a condo, across 10th Street to an empty city-owned building. There it built up a following and grew into a seasonal scene, particularly around the holidays, when thousands of people used the work of the Market Collective artists to check off their Christmas gift lists.
The only drawback was that by being a hit, it invariably revived whatever space it occupied to the point where it was forced out by economics.
“It created vitality, then becomes a victim of its success,” Guerra says.
Angel Guerra | Photo: Courtesy of Market Collective
Eleven years later, Market Collective still doesn’t have a permanent home, but it has continued to grow and has become a retail institution that allows hundreds of artists to earn money from their art.
In 2018, Guerra estimated that over the past three years, Calgarians have spent $5 million on artists’ work, and that DJs have earned $75,000 working at various Market Collectives.
“Over the years, it became apparent that not only was Market Collective filling a gap, but we were a forerunner for pop-ups in the city or different art markets, or even just different endeavors in the community that were able to springboard from Market Collective or meet some artists from Market Collective. So I think it filled a gap people were looking for at that time.”
“It still fills a bit of a gap, but it’s different now,” Guerra said, “because there are a lot of things like Market Collective, but at the time, we saw all these artists and musicians leaving Calgary once they graduated high school or university and moved to the next step in their career.
“Things like Market Collective have helped keep artists and musicians in the city and give them a place that they can make a sustainable living.”
A bustling Market Collective in the fall of 2017 | Photo: Courtesy of Market Collective
Over the last weekend of May, the Market Collective took place on a whole other level—it occupied the BMO Centre at Stampede Park.
In addition to the artists selling their work, other artists found work performing, Guerra says.
“It had six DJs, eight bands, and four dance troupes,” she says.
This summer, the market will take over the St. Louis Hotel on weekends, offering pop-up artisanal retail, live bands, and food.
“We’re super-excited for this summer-long activation to be in East Village, alongside other cultural institutions such as the National Music Centre and the new Central Library,” she says.
Other pop-up events are planned for the summer in conjunction with Vans, the Bumble singles app, and Sled Island.
If anything has changed over the past decade, it’s that the retail world—blending music, food and rotating locations—has become more like Market Collective.
Reuben and the Dark are rock stars now, but Bullock still remembers when he was given the opportunity to perform at Market Collective.
“It was amazing to be a part of the Market Collective from the very first days, but it has been really incredible watching it grow over the last decade,” he says. “It has become a cultural hub for Calgary and that is a serious accomplishment. I’m proud of the Market Collective, and everyone who has been involved. It’s pretty special to have played on day one.”
Eleven years ago, Calgary residents Angel Guerra and her friend Angela Dione found themselves at a flea market in West Hillhurst, where hundreds of people drop by every Sunday, to pick over an assortment of old records, hardcover books, vintage clothing, hockey memorabilia, used bicycles, coins, and other collector’s items.
It inspired Guerra and Dione to try a variation on the same theme.
What if they arranged a similar event, only instead of selling memorabilia, it would feature young artists selling new work? With local bands playing live? And DJs spinning records?
“Dione really had a heart for the artists and seeing it be an artists space–so we put all our ideas together for live music, community, local commerce and art,” Guerra says.
“That was kind of the initial conversation we had and from those passions came Market Collective.”
Dion and Guerra each chipped in $100, rented a room in the carpenter’s union hall on 10th Street in Kensington, and Market Collective was born.
The first musician to perform at the first Market Collective was Reuben Bullock, who went on to form Reuben and the Dark.
Back then, the market was an intermittent event—a pop-up—that relied on locating appropriate and affordable temporary spaces at a time when available space was at a premium in boomtown Calgary.
Eventually, the collective moved from that union hall, which is now a condo, across 10th Street to an empty city-owned building. There it built up a following and grew into a seasonal scene, particularly around the holidays, when thousands of people used the work of the Market Collective artists to check off their Christmas gift lists.
The only drawback was that by being a hit, it invariably revived whatever space it occupied to the point where it was forced out by economics.
“It created vitality, then becomes a victim of its success,” Guerra says.
Angel Guerra | Photo: Courtesy of Market Collective
Eleven years later, Market Collective still doesn’t have a permanent home, but it has continued to grow and has become a retail institution that allows hundreds of artists to earn money from their art.
In 2018, Guerra estimated that over the past three years, Calgarians have spent $5 million on artists’ work, and that DJs have earned $75,000 working at various Market Collectives.
“Over the years, it became apparent that not only was Market Collective filling a gap, but we were a forerunner for pop-ups in the city or different art markets, or even just different endeavors in the community that were able to springboard from Market Collective or meet some artists from Market Collective. So I think it filled a gap people were looking for at that time.”
“It still fills a bit of a gap, but it’s different now,” Guerra said, “because there are a lot of things like Market Collective, but at the time, we saw all these artists and musicians leaving Calgary once they graduated high school or university and moved to the next step in their career.
“Things like Market Collective have helped keep artists and musicians in the city and give them a place that they can make a sustainable living.”
A bustling Market Collective in the fall of 2017 | Photo: Courtesy of Market Collective
Over the last weekend of May, the Market Collective took place on a whole other level—it occupied the BMO Centre at Stampede Park.
In addition to the artists selling their work, other artists found work performing, Guerra says.
“It had six DJs, eight bands, and four dance troupes,” she says.
This summer, the market will take over the St. Louis Hotel on weekends, offering pop-up artisanal retail, live bands, and food.
“We’re super-excited for this summer-long activation to be in East Village, alongside other cultural institutions such as the National Music Centre and the new Central Library,” she says.
Other pop-up events are planned for the summer in conjunction with Vans, the Bumble singles app, and Sled Island.
If anything has changed over the past decade, it’s that the retail world—blending music, food and rotating locations—has become more like Market Collective.
Reuben and the Dark are rock stars now, but Bullock still remembers when he was given the opportunity to perform at Market Collective.
“It was amazing to be a part of the Market Collective from the very first days, but it has been really incredible watching it grow over the last decade,” he says. “It has become a cultural hub for Calgary and that is a serious accomplishment. I’m proud of the Market Collective, and everyone who has been involved. It’s pretty special to have played on day one.”
Families have always been a key part of Market Collective | Photo: Mike Tan
Based on data from organizations funded in part through Calgary Arts Development.
*Artists and Cultural Workers in Canadian Municipalities, Hill Strategies, December 2014 (based on the 2016 Canada census).
Fans gather on Olympic Plaza following the Parade of Wonders | Photo: Courtesy of Calgary Expo
The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo is a four-day pop-culture convention held in annually each spring Calgary at Stampede Park. Planning began in 2005 when a group of local nerds decided to bring some notable comic book artists to Calgary, wrangle up some vendors, and put on a fun show for kids of all ages. Since its first fledgling year in 2006, which had an attendance of 3,400 people, the Calgary Expo has grown to be the largest pop culture convention in Western Canada with an annual attendance of about 85,000 people.
Melanie Parsons, artist and owner of Savage Rose Designs, is a proud Cree Métis woman who was born in, and lives in, Calgary. This area is also known as Mohkinstsis, the traditional lands of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Parson launched Savage Rose Designs in 2010 and comes from a long line of Cree artisans. She finds joy in spending hours perfecting her craft, sharing her expertise and learning new skills or techniques from other Indigenous artists. Parson embraces her heritage and promotes Indigenous culture and practices through her art.
Savage Rose Designs | Photo: Courtesy of Melanie Parsons