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AD HOC #79SIX BY ARTHUR LIPSETT
A BOOK LAUNCH FOR "SECRET MUSEUMS: THE FILMS OF ARTHUR LIPSETT"
PRESENTED BY AUTHOR STEPHEN BROOMER
October 2, 2025
7PM
Innis Town Hall
AD HOC presents six films by Arthur Lipsett, the legendary Canadian collage filmmaker, subject of a new critical biography by filmmaker and preservationist Stephen Broomer. Broomer will be in attendance.
Note: this is a free, unticketed event. Seating will be on a first-come first-served basis.
Arthur Lipsett’s first film was nominated for an Academy Award in 1962, marking the arrival of an influential new voice. The film’s dark humour and dancing rhythms had captured the spirit of his times. When Lipsett died by suicide in 1986, the humour and joy of his work was eclipsed by that sardonic darkness. It all came to feel like an omen.
Secret Museums is a study in the life and work of Canadian collage filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, whose struggles with mental illness have overshadowed his vital and innovative work. Author Stephen Broomer explores the spiritual themes and formal challenges posed by Lipsett’s films and the artist’s absurdist, comic, beatnik sensibility. As a critical biography, Secret Museums follows the trajectory of Lipsett’s life through his years as a filmmaker (1960–1975) and after, with new interpretations and analysis of his eight completed films.
In Secret Museums, Lipsett’s films are recognized as riotous comedies that reflect the artist’s resilience. This study offers a new interpretation of Lipsett and his films, positioning him as both a visionary force and a holy fool, illuminating fresh pathways through his work that reflect his understandings of his sources and his world.
Stephen Broomer is a filmmaker from Toronto, Canada. His films have screened at Anthology Film Archives, the New York Film Festival, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and he has restored films by R. Bruce Elder, Larry Kardish, and Josephine Massarella, among others. He is the founder of Black Zero, a film collection and home video company dedicated to the preservation of Canadian experimental cinema. He teaches in the Cinema Studies Institute at Innis College, University of Toronto.
TRT: 90 minutes, with an introduction by Stephen Broomer. Screening will be followed by a book signing.
PROGRAMME:
Very Nice, Very Nice (1961, 7 minutes, black and white, sound, 16mm)
21-87 (1963, 10 minutes, black and white, sound, 16mm)
Two by Lipsett [Free Fall and A Trip Down Memory Lane, presented with conversation by students] (1964/1965/1968, 28 minutes, black and white, sound, 16mm)
Fluxes (1968, 23 minutes, black and white, sound, 16mm)
Strange Codes (1975, 23 minutes, black and white, sound, 4K DCP)
AD HOC aims to rethink what an experience of cinema can be. We seek to reposition historical landmarks and buried treasures within the on-going tradition of experimental and other non- commercial modes of filmmaking, drawing on work from Toronto, throughout Canada, and internationally. Within these parameters, we aspire to diversity in programming, as well as to multimedia and interdisciplinary screening events that bring together varied communities.
AD HOC = Stephen Broomer, Madi Piller, Jim Shedden, Bart Testa.
AD HOC would like to thank Alberto Zambenedetti, Denise Ing, Charlie Keil, and the staff of Innis College and the Cinema Studies Institute.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue,Toronto, Ontario, Canada
