Yorkville (2015)

director / camera / editor / composer

When New York City found its artists burrowing in Greenwich Village, and while artists were flocking to Haight-Ashbury on the San Francisco scene, the hippies of Toronto were building their own cultural haven in Yorkville. 

Located in the dead centre of the city, the neighbourhood became a place for Canadian musicians, writers, and political activists to form a community in one of their country's largest metropolises. Singers like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Gordon Lightfoot found themselves in the same cafes and clubs as migrated Americans including Rick James, Ronnie Hawkins, and Leon Redbone before making a name for themselves in the mainstream. Draft dodgers mixed in with curious Canadian youths, and a presence was born that shocked and alarmed the Silent Generation as the 1960s counterculture grew.

But after a few years of a flourishing arts scene and political demonstrations, the creation of an experimental university started Yorkville on its short road to decay. But an educational experiment gone wrong could not be the only factor in destroying one of the most prominent cultures in Canadian history.

61 minutes

2015 Official Selection Asbury Park Music in Film Festival (Asbury Park, NJ)

2015 Analogue Gallery Screening (Toronto, ON)

2015 Official Selection NewFilmmakers New York at the Anthology Film Archives (New York, NY)

2015 Official Selection Female Eye Film Festival (Toronto, ON)

2015 Official Selection Woodstock Museum Film Festival (Woodstock, NY)

2015 Official Selection Reel Indie Film Festival (Toronto, ON)

2015 Official Selection Hamilton Film Festival (Hamilton, ON)