Super double fantastic

Director, videographer and film nerd Tim Kelly owes everything to strangers and popcorn

“I was travelling around the world and ran out of money in Montreal. When I first arrived, the cross wasn’t lit up. I decided that when the lights turned back on, I could leave. One day they turned back on and I hadn’t had enough yet.”

And that’s how 24-year-old Australian Tim Kelly explains his arrival to our fair city two-and-a-half years ago. Since then, he’s ingrained himself in the art scene, getting started with an (ille­gal) weekly outdoor cinema in his own backyard called Cinequanon. Celebrating its second year this past summer, Cinequanon screens foreign and cult classics chosen by Kelly, gathering crowds and obviously getting into some trouble.

“Every single thing I have done that is successful in Montreal would not have happened if I did not invite a pile of strangers into my backyard to watch movies and eat free popcorn and use all our toilet paper,” says Kelly.

Sharing his passion for weird films led him to sharing his talent as a filmmaker, becoming the videographer for Pop Montreal in 2009. Meeting numerous local talents inspired his next project, Big Small, a series of short films about different artists.

“I only make films about people I know I can fall in love with. They are artist portraits, but I care more about the people’s personalities than their work. Obviously their art has to be good, but they, as a person, have to be better,” explains Kelly.

And so his films are incredibly intimate portraits of musicians like Beaver Sheppard, Jason Harvey and Tornstartssbandht, just to name a few, with Kelly sometimes spending sev­eral months with his subject. The short films were showcased at Studio OFF Interarts during all five days of the 2010 edition of Pop Montreal.

This year, Kelly hopes to work on at least three new Big Small videos, eventually using these to create a website entirely dedicated to the Montreal scene. Cinequanon will also be back for a third summer, when the snow melts and the young Aussie returns from hibernation.

He’ll also be continuing his love affair with local musicians, working on a few music videos, including a goth-inspired video with Grimes, which he describes as “super double fantastic stuff.”

“I’m a 20-something bro who likes to party. Music is the art form for this decade of my life; when it is over, I will start to take myself a lot more seriously.”

Thankfully, this is Montreal and that never has to happen. ★

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