Communal Dreaming

Appreciation of culture is always subjective, what speaks to the core of one of us might fall flat on another. For me though, the art of film has always stood as the meeting point where literature, design, music and photography combine to produce a medium of almost limitless possibilities. I take great joy in knowing that as long as I live, there will always be more movies than I can possibly take in- an ocean of experience that was here before any of us, and will certainly be here long after our daily flutterings have ceased.
I remember attending free film screnings at SLQ as a budding movie fan, and being exposed to new worlds, each one offering a new tangent to explore. Decades old, the Sunday movie screenings here have been a staple of our community so entrenched that stepping into the shoes of my predecessor has at times felt like a responsibility almost overwhelming in it's scope.
But we have continued- three years into my tenure and we're still going to the movies, being challenged, angered, seduced, educated, comforted and entertained by this collective dreaming that is cinema. At times I've wondered if the fact that most of us now have screens in our homes of a dazzling size and quality, in addition to unprecedented access to film archives through new delivery systems would affect our behaviour- that the simple act of a community coming together under one roof to share a dramatic experience would fade away. It would seem not- the very nature of movies is that they are populist, they're meant to be experienced together, and discussed afterwards. The movie fan with nobody to discuss their favourite (or least favourite) flick with is a lonely soul indeed.

This is a time of the year where I'd like to think we can take a moment to look at our lives, the year we've had, and the one that lies before us. And looking back I must say I stand humbled and grateful for the SLiQFlicks audience, who keep coming back, to have that silent communal conversation in the shared dark of the movies, where for a couple of hours each week we see where the rabbit hole takes us.

There's a kind of peace in embracing such a simple, universal act, and even though every movie is a beautiful lie, there's a truth in how we perceive them.  
I hope we continue to dream together for years to come.