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- JOHN'S BIOGRAPHY -

Published Endorsements of John's Work

John Porter has been a filmmaker, performer, photographer and writer in Toronto since 1968. He has made over 300 films, mostly super 8, performed over 100 solo shows internationally, and has been called “the king of super 8”, among other names.

Using film as a visual art like painting, many of his short films are silent, made in series' (Camera Dances, crowd portraits, local histories, rituals, toy stories), and he shows his originals (no copies). While projecting some he performs live in the audience, in front of the screen, or while hand-holding the small projector for "surround super 8" in galleries and for projecting onto passing people and vehicles while "film-busking" on the street at night. His films are dynamic, humorous and revealing, enjoyed by people of all ages.

John's mother is a painter and his father was a scientist, and while he was growing up he explored drawing, writing, acting and photography. He studied photography and 16mm film production at Ryerson University (1969-74), worked as a Letter Carrier (1976-81, photo) and Bicycle Courier (1987-98), and has received five “B” or “Creation” Grants, in Film or Multi-Disciplinary Art, from the Canada Council for the Arts since 1984. He has taught many super 8 workshops and spoken in many university film classes, and he taught his first super 8 and 16mm Film Workshop credit courses in the Summers of 2005 and 2008, at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.

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He has been actively involved with several artist-run centres in Toronto since 1978, including serving many years on Boards of Directors. He's been most consistently involved with The Funnel Experimental Film Theatre (1977-1989), Pleasure Dome Artists Film Exhibition Group (since 1989) and CineCycle Underground Cinema (since 1991). Throughout the 1980s he organized many Monthly Open Film Screenings at The Funnel and A Space Gallery, and made and projected (photo) super 8 films with the band Fifth Column. More recently, he co-organized Monthly Open Screenings at CineCycle for 31 consecutive months (2004-2006).

In 1998 Pleasure Dome published a book about him, The John Porter Film Activity Book with essays by John McCullough, Chris Gehman, Steve Reinke and Gerald Saul, and he was included in Scott MacDonald’s A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (University of California Press, review). In 2006 a feature article about him by Rick Palidwor was published in Super 8 Today Magazine #5 (USA), and in 2007, smallformat magazine #5 (English and German editions published in Berlin) included an 8-page article about John - smallformat's longest article ever - with 28 photos.

In 2007 John went on a 4-week, 7-screening/performance tour of Europe, incuding two critically-acclaimed shows at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and then he did two shows at Anthology Film Archives in New York City.

His on-going community activism includes photographing and writing about local underground film activity, advocating super 8 film and $50 film budgets, and resisting the dominance of the film industry, the Ontario Film Review Board, and video. He resisted email and the internet until 2005.