Cooperage (1975),Phillip Borsos's   fonds. -- 1954---1995. --  first film after graduating from the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr College of Art) was the first of three Borsos films to win Canadian film awards for best short and helped to establish him as a western presence in Canadian filmmaking.  Phillip followed up Cooperage with Spartree and then the Academy Award nominated short, Nails.  By then Borsos' interest turned to feature films and his first, The Grey Fox, cemented Borsos' position in the industry and helped pave the way for future B.C. and western filmmakers. 
 The Grey Fox, released in 1983 when Borsos was just 29, became one of the most acclaimed movies in the history of Canadian filmmaking.  The film, about the life and times of B.C. train robber Bill Miner (Richard Farnsworth), found commercial and critical success in Canada and abroad, and won seven Canadian Film Awards (now the Genies) including best film, best director and best original screenplay.  Critics have rated The Grey Fox as one of the 10 best Canadian films of all time in two national polls
 The Grey Fox was the first B.C. feature film to get funding from Telefilm Canada and proved that a "big-budget" film could be made with a western setting and subject.  "It was a breakthrough movie, no doubt about it," says longtime Vancouver film writer Ian Caddell.  "It showed you could set your film, in the west and tell your story in the west - you didn't have to make it somewhere else."  Borsos' success with The Grey Fox sent a signal to other western directors that they could make a feature film, and get financial backing and support.
 Borsos was instrumental in getting Telefilm Canada to set up an office in B.C. and the success of The Grey Fox helped give another B.C. director - Sandy Wilson - the support for her landmark film My American Cousin, which was produced by longtime Borsos friend and The Grey Fox producer, Peter O'Brian.
 Borsos went on to make several more feature films from his home base on Mayne Island, including The Mean Season, One Magic Christmas and Bethune.  Borsos was working on the final editing stages of Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog, when he was diagnosed with leukemia in 1994.  He passed away just before the film was released but his influence on B.C. filmmaking lives on and many of the films on display at this year's Festival are a tribute to his ground breaking work. 

Paul Smith.

The Barking Dog

The first film by Phillip Borsos (The Grey Fox, Bethune), made at the old Vancouver Art School, shot at the old Sweeney Cooperage, and serving up a tongue-in-cheek, student-film hybrid of Western and gangster films. Phillip Borsos/1973. B&W, 16mm. 5 mins.

Cooperage  (1977, 35mm, Colour, 15 minutes)

Cooperage begins the trilogy of 'process films' that were such an important aspsect  of Borsos' emergence as one of Canada's foremost filmmakers.  Borsos would later film his first feature the Grey Fox at this same Sweeney Cooperage, Canada's only wooden barrel-making factory, located in Vancouver.  This film, like the later Spartree and Nails, provides a romantic glimpse of the 'way things used to be'; the use of human labour in contrast to mechanization of the modern world.  This is a rare opportunity to see the three films together, all shown on 35mm and in their original aspect ratio.

Grey Fox

One of the most admired and acclaimed works in the history of Canadian cinema, Phillip Borsos' remarkable debut feature made good on the promise of his award-winning short films and had critics hailing the emergence of a major new talent.  Richard Farnsworth has the title role as gentleman bandit Bill Miner, an aging Old West stagecoach robber released into the 20th century after 33 years in San Quentin prison.  His introduction to modernity includes a mesmerizing first exposure to the miracle of movies. Filmed at the Sweeney Cooperage,