The Splice of Life

The story behind Ed Ackerman and Greg Zbitnew’s short film 5¢ a Copy fairly describes how art comes together in Winnipeg. It’s 1980, and members of the Winnipeg Film Group, an artists’ collective formed in 1974 with a manifesto typical of its era (earnest, vague), decide they’re important enough now to buy a photocopier for the office. Some are unhappy about the decision. Shouldn’t they be spending grant money on things like cameras and film? Ackerman and Zbitnew respond not with a memo or a motion at a meeting but with a surreal animation made up of photocopied faces and cut‑outs, three minutes long.

Decades later, this is still how things work in the city’s creative community. It’s not about the weather. It’s not about something in the water. It’s about the option, when you have something to say, not to complain but to make a movie (or a painting or a poem), because there’s...