A British expatriate who became CBC’s first film reviewer and founded the Ontario Film Institute (now TIFF Cinematheque), Gerald Pratley died Monday in a Belleville hospital. He was 87.
Born in London, Pratley moved to Toronto after the Second World War and became an essential element of Canada’s film culture. He hosted several programs on the CBC between 1948 and 1975 and chaired the Toronto Film Society and the Toronto and District Film Council. He was the CBC’s man at the Cannes Film Festival for 30 years, during which time he also wrote for Variety, Canadian Film Weekly, Canadian Film Digest, Hollywood Quarterly and Film In Review.
He taught film history at the U of T, York, Ryerson, Seneca College and the University of Waterloo, and was director of the Stratford Film Festival from 1970 to 1975.
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was founding the Ontario Film Institute in 1968, which became Cinematheque Ontario in 1990. Now known as TIFF Cinematheque, it’s a cornerstone of the festival group’s operations, with retrospectives and curated series screening daily at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
“Gerald was a long-time member of the TIFF family and played a key role in the growth and evolution of our organization,” said Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF. “Throughout his career, Gerald was a passionate advocate for cinema in all of its forms and made significant contributions to the advancement of film studies in Canada and around the world. We were so fortunate to have had the opportunity to work closely with Gerald over more than 20 years and his passing will leave a significant void in the realm of film studies here in Canada.”
Pratley wrote six books, including an authoritative history of Canadian cinema, Torn Sprockets: The Uncertain Projection Of The Canadian Film, in 1986. (The very first sentence established his considered, slightly spiky tone: “Canada’s early work in film-making is not important, and there is little point in trying to pretend otherwise.”)
Pratley was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1984, and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2003. He received a special Genie Award in 2002, in recognition of his decades of service to Canadian cinema.
In 1998, he was one of the first recipients of the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Clyde Gilmour Award, for his efforts to enrich the understanding and appreciation of film in Canada.
