Winter Kept Us Warm1965

An independent film written, directed and funded by David Secter, it occupies a unique place in the history of Canadian cinema as the first English language Canadian film ever screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film starred John Labow as Doug and Henry Tarvainen as Peter, two students at the University of Toronto who develop a complex quasi-romantic relationship, and Joy Tepperman and Janet Amos as their girlfriends Bev and Sandra. The film's gay subtext was carefully coded by Secter, who wrote the film based on his own experience falling in love with a male fellow student but feared that a more explicitly gay film would not attract an audience.