Portfolio

My name is Eric Veillette. I’m an arts journalist & media producer living in Toronto.

I’m interested in how local film cultures evolve, how government policies shape the arts & the realities of labour in the cultural sector. My latest work has been published by The Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Radio-Canada & Spacing Magazine.

LATEST PUBLISHED WORK

I worked as a Culture reporter for CBC/Radio-Canada, covered red carpets, exhibits & festivals for France 24, was a columnist for the Toronto Star, penned obituaries for Rue Morgue Magazine & led copy-writing projects for Heritage Toronto & the National Film Board of Canada.

RADIO REPORTAGES PUBLISHED BY CBC/RADIO-CANADA

I was the Programming Director at Toronto’s Revue Cinema from 2015 to 2020. I worked with TIFF, Rendezvous With Madness, Goethe-Institut Toronto & curated exhibits for the ROM, Bata Shoe Museum, Hot Docs & Images Festival.

If you’re developing a project that could benefit from a dynamic & experienced storyteller, I’m available as a paid consultant, producer, or project manager. Please email me at veillette.eric@gmail.com.

Profiles

B-roll burden | Taddle Creek No. 30, Summer 2013 | The time I was interviewed about an enormous film collection

Life in a tiny northern town | Taddle Creek No. 41, Summer 2018 | The time I was interviewed about my miniature town obsession

Other projects

I document the history of trash, cult & art film exhibition in Toronto through newspaper listings at The Downtown Theatre.

In Walerian Borowczyk’s La Marge, Joe Dallesandro & Sylvia Kristel drift through a transactional, emotionally vacant affair, folding grief, sex & alienation into a chilly, dream-like bleakness. Currently streaming on Criterion Channel (along with two other Borowczyk films), it pushes the era’s soft-focus erotic style until it becomes strangely un-erotic, with the couple locked in blunt, joyless intimacy. This isn’t a dig — the film is actually kind of incredible. Earlier today, Star editor @doug.brod asked me if I could contribute an entry on The Princess Bride for a Rob Reiner tribute published online this afternoon. I wrote about how my dad took me to see it when it first came out, in the late fall of 1987, and how Reiner’s generosity toward audiences — and toward his performers — is what gives his work its lasting humanity. Nice to share a byline with @jadedjournalista @brionycwsmith & @brofromanotherone. Photos of The Victory Theatre, Timmins, early ‘80s. Ads from the Toronto Star, October 9, 11, 18, November 19, 1987. Penelope Spheeris in the 1980s: The Boys Next Door, Hollywood Vice Squad, Dudes, Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. Calling the Shots makes an appearance here — Holly Dale & Janis Cole’s incredible documentary about women in film (which was recently screened by @cinemathequoft @filmlibrary_mediaarchives) This week’s newsletter looks at the history of the B Festival, a 1980s genre film festival held at the Bloor Cinema & later known as the Cult & Video Film Festival. The above ads were some of the films shown in its second edition, in 1987. Was fun chatting with @thatrobsalem, Julian Grant, @norm.wilner, @dionconflict, Luis Ceriz from @suspectvideo, about genre programming in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Hellraiser opened on September 18, 1987 at a number of Cineplex houses throughout the GTA. This week’s Downtown Theatre newsletter looks at the history of the @hotdocs_ cinema. From midtown show-place to porno palace, revival house to festival headquarters, it’s been called the Madison, Midtown, Capri, Eden, Hot Docs — a cinema with many names, yet for many of us, it’s forever The Bloor. From the director of Gestapo’s Last Orgy, I, Emmanuelle was released in Ontario as Sensuous Emmanuelle and played at the Eden on February 8, 1974, months before Jaeckin’s Emmanuelle would make its way to the Ontario Censor Board. Marilyn Chambers was a familiar presence on Toronto screens throughout the ‘70s & ‘80s. Here are ads for Insatiable, Up & Coming (where she plays a rising Country star, and opened at the Imperial), as well as Cronenberg’s Rabid. With news of Udo Kier’s death, I thought I’d look at Paul Morrissey’s wild & chaotic Blood for Dracula. (Strangely, I posted Frankenstein’s cuts just a week ago.) Michael Powell’s incredible Peeping Tom opened at the Odeon Fairlawn, Humber & Danforth Theatres on June 16, 1961. It was reviewed by censors R.A. Gaskin & C.W. Knowles on June 7, who objected to the line “That silly bitch…” and demanded it be cut. The film later had a long life on the repertory circuit, but barely ran a full week upon release (it’s tough to open against a William Castle flick). This week’s Downtown Theatre newsletter looks at how the xenophobic post-war attitudes of the 1920s prevented German films from playing in Ontario theatres — The Last Laugh, F.W. Murnau’s silent masterpiece, among them. Subscribe to the newsletter in the link above to find out more. Flesh For Frankenstein opened at the Uptown on May 24, 1974. It’s an insanely goofy & grotesque film: Python-levels of blood-spewing, several sexually-confused men, twins running a guillotine on a doll, incalculable levels of tastelessness & the greatest line of ‘70s horror: “To know death, Otto, you must fuck life in the gall bladder.” Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes opened at the Eglinton Theatre on January 2, 1939. I tend to focus on cuts required to films from the ‘60s to the ‘80s, but the earliest decades of moviegoing tend to be even more fascinating as they focused on dialogue – mostly sacrilegious – and existed before proper age classifications were enacted: Chief censor O.J. Silverthorne created the Adult Entertainment category in 1946, and the “Restricted” category in 1953. Hammer’s Frankenstein Created Woman premiered at the Downtown Theatre on March 15, 1967, paired with The Mummy’s Shroud. One of the most conceptually daring entries in Hammer’s seven Frankenstein films, where Peter Cushing’s Baron isn’t reanimating flesh but experimenting with consciousness itself. A disfigured woman (Playboy Playmate Susan Denberg) is brought back to life with her dead lover’s soul inside her, blurring gender, identity, vengeance, and paves the way for Hammer’s later Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (one of the best films of the studio’s later period). James Whale’s legendary Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, opened at the Tivoli at Richmond & Victoria on January 2, 1932. Even though sound horror was just gaining ground at the time, it was the second horror flick in a row to play at the Tivoli — Rouben Mamoulien’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde had just ended its run. Chronicling Toronto’s cinemas, the people who run them, and their stories, is the goal of this project. Happy to highlight images of Toronto cinemas on film, many scanned from my 16mm archive, and some generously provided by @cipreleasing & @mediacommonsarchives. Midnite horror marathon of mostly Universal horror flicks are advertised at the Titania ( @thedanforthmusichall ) on December 24, 1971. The theatre was one of the big theatres built by the Allen Chain in the 1910s, part of Canada’s first national chain of theatres. For @cbcarts (and this week’s newsletter), I spoke to Brian Allen, president of @premier_theatres, on the state of small-town theatres across Canada. John Carpenter’s Halloween opened at the Varsity and a few other Odeon theatres on January 19, 1979. And while we’re at it, check out some ads for Halloween II through IV. Jean Rollin’s The Nude Vampire & Requiem for a Vampire are double-billed for a two week run at the Eden, beginning April 5, 1974. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors opened in Toronto on February 27, 1987, and from that moment on, Freddy was everywhere for the next 3-4 years. Great @thatrobsalem review on one of the top films of the franchise. It’s playing at @revuecinema tonight — in fact they’re running the entire franchise throughout the month. Hoping to get out to one of them, but at this rate it’ll likely be for Freddy’s Dead 😂. Credits: Toronto Star, February 27, March 4, 16, 1987. To celebrate the release of a new 4K collection by Severin Films, Emmanuelle screens at the @revuecinema on November 29! “Give the little monsters what they deserve.” Ghostbusters was released on June 8, 1984. Here’s a look at how it was marketed over the next six months. What a time to be alive. I’ve been having a lot of fun running The Downtown Theatre. What began as a way to share Toronto’s cinema history on Instagram has grown into a weekly newsletter that lets me dig even deeper into our city’s rich film culture — its people, its theatres, and the stories that shaped them. Each week, I’ll highlight something new from nearly two decades of research: forgotten cinemas, censorship fights, social change, and the voices of those who helped make moviegoing a defining part of Toronto’s cultural life. Fifty years ago tonight, John Waters’ Female Trouble premiered in Toronto at the New Yorker Theatre on Yonge St. In this week’s newsletter, I look at the history of the Metro, Toronto’s last adult cinema.

The archive for the Silent Toronto project resides here. From 2008-2015, Silent Toronto examined the history of film exhibition in Toronto & beyond through a series of articles, public screenings, and gallery exhibits. The project has morphed into The Downtown Theatre Instagram channel, a soon-to-launch Substack, and a forthcoming book.

The archive for the 32 Elvis Movies ‘zine (1999-2002) resides here, featuring interviews with punk & rock luminaries like Bob Keane, Richard Lloyd, Robert Quine, David Thomas, John Holmstrom, and movie legends Mamie Van Doren and Ingrid Pitt. (Still under construction).