Monday Night Film Series: UNB Fredericton

By: Thomas Lepper

Every Monday at 7:30pm in Tilley Hall, Room 102, The New Brunswick Filmmakers’ Co-operative, also called the NB Film Co-Op, airs a film. How did it start? 

In an interview with NB Film Co-Op’s Executive Director Tony Merzetti who runs the Monday Night Film Series. 

The Monday Night Film Series was started in 1985 by John Pederson. Originally, Pederson was producing films for his company Capitol Films, from across Kings Place in a building he rented called the Clark Building. He produced his own films until in the 90s he met the head of the English department of UNB at the time, Dr Barry Cameron.

The two of them decided to host the film series and create a film society, adding 35mm projectors to aid in these productions. After a couple of years, they moved it to the French Community Centre, Communautaire St. Anne.

They not only used the space for their own film society, but also created the English and French Film Societies. Later on, when it became the Monday Night Film Series, they began to show films in other languages, not just French and English. 

In 1992, Dr Barry Cameron moved the film series into Tilley Hall  and ran it until his retirement in 2003.

It was then taken over by another English professor Dr. Tony Larder for a year until he handed it over to NB Film Co-Op in 2004. This was perfect for the Co-Op because they had already started another festival in 2001 called Silver Wave.

“We thought it would fit with what we were doing,” Tony had said when talking about the Monday Night Film Series, “our mandate here of doing film, helping with production and exhibition.” 

The NB Filmmakers Co-Op, started on March 1st, 1979, when a group of aspiring filmmakers wanted a community that could share resources to make films. 

“They were able to hire staff, and they bought equipment, and basically the place became a community resource where anyone who was interested in learning about film with little or no experience could come and learn from people that had some more experience.” Tony Merzetti had said.

In a later email, when asked what he planned to do this year with Monday Nights, he stated they will continue operating in Tilley Hall. Especially “Films that don’t show in Fredericton normally but have critical acclaim and have wonderful universal stories from Canada and around the world.”

In fact, one film recently made it into the Toronto Film Festival, the third largest film festival in Canada. When Tony Merzetti had mentioned this he added, “dreams can come true.” 

For more information visit New Brunswick Filmmakers’ Co-operative (nbfilmcoop.com)

Edited by: Connor Fraser