Winter Kept Us Warm

[Director David Cronenberg on the influence Winter Kept Us Warm (1965) had on his career:] "I can't say the 'University of Toronto' led me to horror, but what it did do was lead me to cinema, though I never studied cinema. There was a student called David Secter who was making a movie called Winter Kept Us Warm (1965), which starred some friends of mine. And it never occurred to me that you could make a movie. It was unlike someone growing up in LA where everybody's parents were in the business. In Toronto, no one's parents were in the movie business because there wasn't a movie business.(...) The number of films I've seen that have impressed me is endless. But actually, Winter Kept Us Warm (1965) is the most influential film of my life in a weird way. It wasn't a horror film - it was a drama about students coping with life at the 'University of Toronto' - and it wasn't because of its artistry. It was just the fact it was made. It's hard to reproduce the shock I felt when I saw my classmates on screen in a real movie, acting. It was like magic: you are watching TV and suddenly you are in the TV, acting in some TV series. It was that kind of shock." ('The Guardian' 14th Sept. 2014)

Dialogue- Ian Porter, John Clute, & cast

Featured in On Screen!: Shivers (2008)