Montreal International Film Festival

The Montreal International Film Festival was an annual Canadian film festival, which took place in Montreal, Quebec from 1960 to 1967.[1] A primarily non-competitive festival, it was led throughout its history by Pierre Juneau as president,[1] with Robert Daudelin as a manager and programmer.[2] At the fourth festival in 1963, the festival also introduced a competitive parallel Festival of Canadian Films, with a prize presented to the film judged as the best film in the program.[3]

The overall festival developed a positive international reputation, culminating in its hosting the world premiere of the film Bonnie and Clyde in 1967,[4] but the Canadian stream was controversial, with filmmakers often expressing their opposition to the competitive nature of the program.[5] The controversy was most pronounced in 1966, when the jury gave out numerous honorable mentions but declined to name any feature or short winners on the grounds that the films in competition did not measure up to the "concepts and standards of execution that Canadian film-makers have set themselves",[6] and in 1967, when feature co-winners Allan King and Jean Pierre Lefebvre announced a joint decision to share their prize money equally with the other two feature films in competition, Pierre Perrault's The Times That Are (Le Règne du jour) and Michel Brault's Between Salt and Sweet Water (Entre la mer et l'eau douce).[7]

The 1967 jury's choices of Jacques Leduc's Chantal en vrac as the medium-length prize winner and Pierre Hébert's Op Hop as the short prize winner were also criticized, as both films had been heavily booed by the audiences at their screenings,[7] and the festival that year had also been impacted by the Quebec Censor Board's banning of Larry Kent's film High.[8]

The festival was cancelled in 1968.[5]

The new Montreal World Film Festival was launched in 1977, and was also sometimes informally referred to as the Montreal International Film Festival.