Vertical Features takes its name from Peter Greenaway’s 1978 featurette Vertical Features Remake. A fictional documentary that also borrows from the language of structural film, Greenaway’s experiment serves to trouble claims of authenticity and authorship, issues still relevant in the world of documentary and other non-fiction media, especially as it moves online and into the gallery.
The name Vertical Features serves to evoke the idea of work that exists adjacent—even perpendicular—to conventional cinema, works that risk oversight. The series hopes to promote vital non-fiction film and video that has had little or no Toronto exposure, including documentary, essay films, hybrid experiments, and artists’ moving image, placing contemporary films in dialogue with historical rediscoveries. Supplemented by introductions and discussions with guest scholars, artists, and critics, Vertical Features serves to highlight and situate these exceptional works.