dir. David Secter
1965
Canada
81 min
 
Winter Kept Us Warm is English Canada’s first gay film. The story of a campus friendship between two young men that grows into something more, this film played to festival acclaim around the world in 1965.
 
“‘Winter Kept Us Warm’ was made on a shoestring at the University of Toronto by Secter, [then] a 22- year-old English major from Winnipeg. It wasn't easy. After Student Council money launched the filming of Secter's script of an 'ambiguous' (as they used to say in the sixties) male friendship in a campus residence, finishing grants were predictably refused by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the National Film Board.  But Secter persisted and went on to prove the bureaucrats wrong.... ‘Winter...’ still looks good today. It is sad but strong, rough edged but movingly tender and honest. To see it is to rediscover not only an unjustly neglected Canadian film, but also a poignant moment in gay history - an image from those winters in Toronto that we must never forget."
—Tom Waugh, The Body Politic
 
“Film scholars and academics everywhere should insist their universities and colleges order a copy of this crucial bit of gay film history for their libraries.”
—Matthew Hays, The Gay & Lesbian Review