The Marie Dressler Foundation was established in 1989 to restore and preserve the house where Marie Dressler is believed to have been born. The Foundation, led by Bob Amsbury and Bill Patchett, raised about $400,000 to buy and repair the building, which now houses the Marie Dressler Museum and the Cobourg Community Development Department.
Having restored the building the Foundation convened a committee to organize a festival of Marie Dressler films to show the community why Dressler occupies a unique place in film history. The festival has continued in the following years and now shows films featuring Dressler's contemporaries. More on Marie Dressler. (A lot more about Marie Dressler.) This is an all-volunteer non-profit organization and the Film Festival is a non-profit event. Financing depends on the generous support of our Sponsors.
The Festival is held every year on the last weekend of October and we show a variety of films generally made before 1955. One film always features Ms. Dressler, but others range from very old, silent films starring Mary Pickford, Erich von Stroheim or Douglas Fairbanks, to talkies and musicals. For a list of all films shown to date, click here.
Currently, the Festival's Friday opening night is in Cobourg's Historic Victoria Hall and includes a reception. On Saturday and Sunday, the venue is the restored atmospheric Capitol Theatre in Port Hope.
For more on previous festivals and our Scholarship winners, see our news page. See the program page for information on the movies to be shown this year. Tickets for the coming season go on sale each year in early summer.
212 King street West
Cobourg, Ontario, Canada
Mailing Address
Vintage Film Festival
c/o Marie Dressler Foundation
PO Box 880
Cobourg, ON, K9A 3B2
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Chair