Barry Avrich peeks behind the curtain at Antoni Cimolino’s retirement from the Stratford Festival

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In 1988, Antoni Cimolino was hired to act at the Stratford Festival. This summer, close to 40 years later, he will bid North America’s largest repertory theatre company a final goodbye, having worked for the festival in nearly every possible capacity: as a director, performer, administrator and, since 2012, as the company’s artistic director.

Filmmaker Barry Avrich is perhaps best known for his controversial 2025 documentary The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue. But the producer has also created a number of films for the Stratford Festival – video captures of plays including King Lear, The Tempest and Macbeth, for instance – as well as projects about the festival, namely 2003’s The Madness of King Richard, about former artistic director Richard Monette.

On April 27, Avrich will premiere his latest work, This Above All: The Theatrical Life of Antoni Cimolino, at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. The movie follows Cimolino through the festival’s recent years, offering audiences a behind-the-scenes look at how the figurehead weathered the pandemic, a number of social reckonings and a looming final bow at the place he’s called home since his youth.

The Globe and Mail spoke with Avrich about the documentary, as well as his experience shadowing Cimolino during a high-stakes season at the Stratford Festival.

What brought you to this project? How long has it been in the works?

Stratford was something I experienced when I was eight. I saw a production of School for Scandal and was immediately hooked. Then, as an adult, someone pitched the idea that I could film their stage-to-screen productions – I approached Antoni about it and we did about 22 of those together, which ended up being a godsend during COVID when the festival launched Stratfest @ Home, their digital streaming service.

I’ve kept a close eye on Antoni since the Richard Monette days. When I thought about his trajectory and his career, I thought it needed to be a film. As Canadians, I don’t feel we’re that great at celebrating our own. With this, I wasn’t looking for some underbelly or exposé. This is a man who stayed in Canada, who could have taken jobs or directorships anywhere in the world. He could have taken sabbaticals. But instead he stayed and shaped the place through some extraordinarily complex times.

Cimolino’s reflections on COVID bookend the film. Did you expect the pandemic to play so heavily in the narrative of his retirement?

No, I didn’t expect that. But I had never seen anything bring the arts to its knees and cripple it in that way before. We’ve had economic recessions that affected the theatre and film industries, but there was no escaping COVID. I felt it needed to be a big part of the film, because who else but Antoni says that the show must go on in that moment? Who decides to pitch a tent, as he did in 2021?

You’ve mentioned before that you and Antoni are friends. What did you observe during this process that you didn’t expect?

I was taken by how excited he is about this next chapter, but also quite sad. It’s going to be tough for him – there’s no question about that. Some people after spending their entire lives at one institution are ready for the next act, but I think there’s a little bit more in him. He knows it’s the right time to go, it’s the right time for Stratford’s next chapter, but you see it in his eyes, and on the stage with him. This place has been a part of his life for a long time. He doesn’t feel his age. He’s still full of ideas and passion – there’s no such thing, with him, as having one foot out the door.

It’s tough. I saw what a challenge it’s going to be for him to leave. I also saw how much he cares about the organization. He’s not thinking about his own legacy – he’s thinking about the festival’s legacy.

You call this film a “celebration” of Antoni. But you also spend a significant amount of time looking at bumps in the road, particularly how the festival handled the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. How did you decide which of those more complex chapters to include?

Those issues have been some of the most critical ones of our times. I wanted to really dig in, and show Antoni’s leadership during those periods. It’s a cancel culture world, and yet Antoni dealt with those issues every time. I wanted to show that he navigated them by listening, by evolving, by innovating, by recognizing it wasn’t going to be perfect on Day One.

It would have been completely unfair of me to have made a bar mitzvah film that’s just one triumph after another. He’s had those challenges, but he’s also someone who is willing to put his ego away, and to fix things. I wanted to capture the entire essence of his career: the good, the bad, the ugly and how he dealt with it.

Early in the film, interviewees from the festival talk about who the next artistic director should be. Someone even suggests that it shouldn’t be “someone brought in from London.” How do you square those sentiments with the fact that Jonathan Church, the festival’s incoming boss, is sort of what they’re talking about – a British outsider with limited history at the festival?

I was aware of those comments. But if anything, Mr. Church should see the film as a bit of a roadmap as he comes in. There’s no question that whoever follows Antoni, someone who’s spent his life there and played every possible role there is to play, is going to have a tough time. But I think for Mr. Church to look at Antoni’s career and process as a bit of a blueprint would be incredibly advisable. You can come in as an artistic genius, but you have to understand how the place operates, too.

This interview has been edited and condensed.