Latest news with #WinterKeptUsWarm
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Climate
- Winnipeg Free Press
Free Press Head Start for Aug. 15, 2025
Sunny, becoming a mix of sun and cloud this afternoon. Wind becoming west at 20 km/h gusting to 40 this morning. High 23 C. Humidex 25. UV index 7 or high. What's happening today A new 4K restoration of Winnipeg-raised director David Secter's 1965 debut feature Winter Kept Us Warm opens tonight at the Dave Barber Cinematheque and runs until Aug. 20. Shot on campus against the wishes of the conservative establishment with an assist from student actors at the University of Toronto and photo school instructors from the former Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, the film has been cited as an inspiration by David Cronenberg, who has called the film 'a shattering revelation.' For tickets and showtimes, click here. Winter Kept Us Warm is screening six times at Cinematheque. (Supplied) Today's must-read Manitoba's first targeted U.S. campaign to attract American board-certified nurses has led to three new hires, nine currently working toward being licensed and 29 additional expressions of interest. 'We're glad to see that interest, but this is just one tool in our recruitment toolbox,' Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in a statement. 'Our priority remains the one-on-one relationship-building that's proven to get results and keep people here for the long term.' If the province wants to attract more nurses, it needs to get its largest hospital removed from the 'grey list' alerting nurses that it's an unsafe place to work, says the head of their union. Carol Sanders has the story. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files) On the bright side Neepawa is home to one of Canada's only remaining public-access television stations. Prior estimates that there are fewer than 30 left in Canada. Launching in 1983, during public-access TV's heyday, NAC-TV has a small studio and control room in which a tight-knit team of staff, volunteers and summer students dart back and forth. Part civic forum, part variety show, its programming blends local political news with charming homegrown fare — scavenger hunts, Filipino heritage events, high school sports and graduation ceremonies. Conrad Sweatman has the story. Neepawa's Community Access Television Station (NACTV) NACTV Manager Ken Waddell, left, and Eoin Devereux, journalist, in discussion on their show that discusses news and issues from the Neepawa Banner and Press. (Cheryl Hnatiuk / Free Press) On this date On Aug. 15, 1963: The Winnipeg Free Press reported in London, police had arrested four suspects and seized a large sum of money (equivalent to $300,000), apparently cracking Britain's great train robbery. The Soviet Union and China revealed the source of their acrid dispute over the nuclear test ban treaty: the U.S.S.R.'s refusal in 1959 to give China nuclear weapons. Prairie farmers expecrted a bumper crop, exceeding even that of 1952, a Free Press survey indicated. Read the rest of this day's paper here. Search our archives for more here. Today's front page Get the full story: Read today's e-edition of the Free Press .
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Nuanced 1965 drama delicate romance in complicated time
This groundbreaking queer film, now available in a 4K restoration that revives its original black-and-white esthetic, never uses the words 'gay' or 'homosexual.' It's a marvel of subtext, a coming-of-age story in which the relationship between the two main male characters is kept quietly coded. This discretion is understandable: Winter Kept Us Warm, written and directed by Brandon-born, Winnipeg-raised David Secter, was first released in 1965, when homosexuality was still a criminal offence in Canada. In 2025, the film functions as a fascinating historical document, a significant marker in the long journey from the celluloid closet to contemporary queer representation. Winter was also the first English-language Canadian work to screen at Cannes, and became an important (but often overlooked) influence on a generation of independent Canadian filmmakers, not just because of its radical subject, but because it managed to get made at all. Modest but often ingeniously artful, Winter was filmed on a shoestring budget by a mostly student cast and crew who were basically learning on the job. Beyond its considerable historic value, though, the film holds up because the story's enforced subtlety shapes a delicate and deeply affecting character study. Our two protagonists, both students at the University of Toronto, are presented in the opening sequences as a study in contrasts. Doug (John Labow, who later became a documentary producer) roars toward campus in a cool convertible, wearing sunglasses and accompanied by a jazzy score. He walks into the college residence like he owns the place. Peter (Henry Tarvainen, who also went on to work as a producer) arrives by cab, awkwardly lugging a big cardboard box, rubbernecking at the big city and all its tall buildings. He's unsure of where to go or what to do. Doug is an extroverted senior, charming and popular, always surrounded by a gang of admiring male friends and often accompanied by his beautiful girlfriend, Bev (billed here as Joy Tepperman, she became the prolific Canadian novelist Joy Fielding). Peter is an introverted, bookish junior, a scholarship boy from an immigrant Finnish family and a small Ontario town. He spends a lot of time alone in the library, and that's where he and Doug get into a conversation about T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, the poem that lends the film its title. Over the course of the school year, the two men's seemingly unlikely friendship grows in intensity, but the dynamics shift, ever so finely, when it seems they might want different things. Secter's approach to the story's queer undercurrents is necessarily oblique. It comes out in a certain way of framing collegiate roughhousing and locker-room towel-flicking, in a shower scene that fades to black, in a sentence left unfinished. 'If I didn't know better, I'd swear you and Pete are…,' Joy says to Doug at one point. That's about as explicit as things get. There are a few clunky moments from inexperienced cast members in minor roles, but the lead performances are remarkably assured. As we follow Doug and Peter's relationship, our initial impressions shift. Doug's brash assurance could be a screen for a deeper insecurity, while Peter ends up being tougher and more confident than he initially appears. The nuanced approach to character extends to the young women. Joy, who senses Doug's declining interest without being able to pinpoint its cause, is given sympathetic treatment, as is Sandra (Janet Amos), a theatre student Peter meets during a production of Ibsen's Ghosts. Secter, who now lives and works in Hawaii, is clearly dealing with an almost non-existent budget and severe practical constraints. (Remember, this was long before struggling cineastes could shoot films on their iPhones.) He has a clear gift for working with actors, and his thoughtful framing and careful camera placement keep things visually interesting, so that even seemingly simple scenes are layered with meaning and intent. The film catches a key juncture in the mid-1960s, poised between tradition (the young men attend dining hall dressed in academic gowns and often socialize in suits and ties) and coming social changes (they also go to coffeehouses and talk about the Vietnam War). The film's open-ended conclusion suggests that Doug and Pete are, like their era, at personal turning points. We are left to imagine each man's future, and even how each might look back at this brief, poignant moment in their lives, with T.S. Eliot once again coming in, speaking of 'memory and desire.' Alison GillmorWriter Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto's York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
