Andres Landau, co-founder and editor at Victory Social Club, watches Zach Cox, co-founder and colourist, work on a project in the colour studio in Toronto.If the Canadian film and television industry has a secret headquarters, it just might be tucked away in an unassuming west-end Toronto commercial building, sandwiched between a Portuguese bank and the ancient Soo Ling Beads & Beading Company.
Welcome to the Victory Social Club, a home away from home for filmmakers that serves as a rebuke to the idea that creative storytelling must be done out of either hot-desking agencies or blandly corporate co-working spaces. “Being among other artists operating at the highest ends of their specialty is the driving factor,” says Geoff Morrison, a Victory member and founder of Big Cedar Films who produced Ali Weinstein’s new Ontario Place documentary, which will have its world premiere at TIFF on Sept. 12. “I needed some colour-correction done on the doc the other week, so I just popped into the colourist’s suite here.
“Working in this field, you’re either surrounded by strangers or you’re home alone, but not here,” says filmmaker and animator Luca Tarantini, who alongsidehere. Steps away are such fellow creatives as photographer May Truong and VFX producer Alex Kurina, another one of Victory’s co-founders.