On Screen Manitoba's Blog | Deep Focus - OSM's deeper focus into Film, Video, Media, People, Technology, Strategies and Forms of Medium.

You could say that filmmaker Alf Kollinger did more than ten years of research for his latest documentary.

Kollinger was a male model in Winnipeg in the late 90’s, but has since turned his attention behind the camera as a documentarian, along with partner Adriana O’Neil.

Kollinger and O’Neil’s latest film, The Glory Days of Modeling in Winnipeg, produced by MTS TV Winnipeg On Demand, will premiere at Cinematheque on March 18. The film documents a period in the city’s past when the modeling industry hit its stride in the 1970’s and 80’s.

In anticipation of the release of The Glory Days of Modeling in Winnipeg, OSM’s Trevor Suffield interviewed Kollinger to explore this intriguing project.

Q: How did the documentary come about?

A: My producing partner Adriana and I were pitching a story to MTS (TV Winnipeg On Demand) and they liked what we did but it didn’t fit their mandate. So she said, okay, now that I know what the mandate is, how about this story? And we pitched them on the idea of doing something on modeling in Winnipeg, so we put together some information, met with Cam (Bennett) and showed him what we had. We met with them early in the year and turned it in at the end of August.

Q: You’re no stranger to modeling yourself, was it easy to get in touch with the models in the film?

A: Adriana has been modeling for a long time so she knew lots of the women. I had about a 10 year run from when I was 40 to when I was about 50, so I got to work with lots of the women as well and the photographers we talked to and the studio owners.

Q: What is the difference between the modeling industry shown in your film to the current modeling industry in Winnipeg?

A: There was just a lot more of it back then, way more, that’s why it’s called The Glory Days of Modeling. The women we talked to made their living and raised their families all on modeling. They worked all the time, and some of them had to turn down work! Now, there are not many shows and a lot of the photo work is gone from here as well. Eaton’s is gone, and the Bay and Clifford’s and lot of the big stores that would do a flier every week – that’s all gone from here.

We still have really good designers here and manufacturing but they aren’t as big, and it’s expensive to put on a show. The only shows now are pretty much the big fundraiser shows.

Q: How popular were the models back then?

A: We ask the question in the movie about them being Winnipeg supermodels, and they were sort of celebrities. They would phone up Bogart’s or one of the nightclubs and say a bunch of us wants to come down, and they’d say “no problem, come on down we’ll let you in the VIP door” because they wanted the models in the house because they were a fun crowd and they brought lots of people with them.

Q: What will people get from watching the film?

A: It’ll be in one sense, a trip down memory lane because people are looking at the fashions and we go back to a model that started in the 40s, and we’ve got models from the 50s to 80s. We’ve got pictures from when Polo Park was new and some of the fashion that was going on then. It’ll be a little bit of a time travel journey through clothes and hair.

And a lot of people will recognize these women: they’ll go “I remember that billboard” or “I know where that was taken” or “I didn’t realize that she was on my street.”

It’s going to be an interesting journey. There are some funny bits, some serious bits and some touching bits. There should be something for whatever they’re looking for in a fashion story.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

What’s next? Kollinger and O’Neil plan to start working on BIGG BOY, a send-up of the world’s first plus-sized male model. The duo will then turn their attention to developing their short, Cougars of Winnipeg, into a web series.

The Glory Days of Modeling in Winnipeg will screen at Cinematheque on March 18 and 19, and then will be available on MTS TV Winnipeg On Demand.

Be Sociable, Share!

•