Leonard Schein

Leonard Schein is a former Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) executive director and Montreal World Film Festival director of English-language films. He founded the Vancouver Internatioinal Film Festival (VIFF) and is a former local movie theatre operator.   Schein was born in Los Angeles, home of the Hollywood Studios but t was his time at Stanford University, a place where they showed films every night (for 25 cents) that his eyes were opened to the power of independent and foreign films He owned and operated Vancouver movie theatres for 35 years, he founded Festival Films, the first full-service film distribution company west of Ontario, as well as Festival Cinemas, which ran the Ridge, the Park, and Fifth Avenue Cinemas. (The Park and Fifth Avenue Cinemas were sold to Cineplex Entertainment in March 2013 while the Ridge closed down.) In 2010, Leonard Schein received a Vancouver Film Critics Circle achievement award and a Canadian Pictures Pioneer Ancillary Award. He has previously received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the BC Community Achievement Award, and the Canadian Cancer Society National Citation of Merit.