At a time when there was a real hunger for film in Canada, Gerald Pratley fed it. The founder of the once-named Ontario Film Institute died Monday at age 87, according to reports.

The British ex-pat had a long and respected film career across the country, known for advocating the art of film. An author of several film books (Century of Canadian Cinema – Gerald Pratley’s Feature Film Guide, 1900 to the Present; Torn Sprockets: The Uncertain Projection of the Canadian Film), Pratley was praised for tackling topics that, for the time, were not often covered.

“His books were different from most other film books,” former executive producer of TVO’s Saturday Night At The Movies Risa Shuman tells Playback Daily. “He actually sat down with filmmakers and talked about how they made their films. At the time, there were few books where you actually heard the voice of the filmmaker.”

Described as a “gentlemanly, unassuming” man, Pratley is credited with founding the Ontario Film Institute in 1968, created as Cinematheque Ontario in 1990. It’s now managed by TIFF as the TIFF Cinematheque and is now housed at the Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

His career began at the CBC as a scriptwriter and was the pubcaster’s first film reviewer in 1948. From there, he contributed to several shows over the years, from the Ceeb’s Pratley at the Movies to Saturday Night At The Movies on TVO.

A member of the Order of Canada, Pratley was also involved with a number of groups, from the Toronto Film Society, the Toronto and District Film Council, and also director of the Stratford International Film Festival.

“So few critics brought film to a different level. He was part of a generation of critics who were true champions of film art,” adds Shuman.

Pratley died in a Belleville hospital surrounded by his family.