We hope that all you film enthusiasts and festival goers are enjoying this hot weather. Summer has been good to us here in Thunder Bay. We are well into our preparations for the SIXTH festival. Our festival this year will be held the weekend of September 30th, October 1-3rd. This year, we are fortunate enough to have three students working on the festival with us through both the summer experience program (Province of Ontario) and through YES Employment Summer Jobs for Youth. I would like to introduce Leon Haggarty, Gillian Arnold and Gabriel Harpelle. Their efforts will help to ensure that our festival will run as smooth as possible, hopefully you will get to meet them festival weekend in October!
This year, we have received a total of 152 submissions through withoutabox and also through the Doc Challenge (Hot Docs) group in Toronto. We were also fortunate again this year to have received funding from the Ontario Arts Council. A portion of this funding, like other years, will be used to help fund those filmmakers who are interested, to travel to Thunder Bay and be present during the festival. They will be able to attend the festival, present their film, and most importantly, interact with us, the members of the community. Through this, many relationships and collaborations have sparked through the years.
We held the judging night in June, and had a great turn out! Thanks again to all those who were able to come and participate. We were able to divide the groups in different locations to make things fun. Of course, the pizza was plentiful as were the good times. The selection committee was able to narrow the list down to just over 50 films from around the world, and much like in previous years we have many local film makers as well as people from out of town attending the festival. One of our important changes from last year’s festival are the ticket prices. This year we will be allowing seniors, students and the unemployed to pay what they can to gain admittance to the festival. Otherwise tickets will remain $5 a session and $20 for a pass that will get you into every session. This year we will be having 15 sessions with films ranging from comedic shorts, documentaries, feature films, and even a few experimental films from around the world.
Our graphic designer has been hard at work designing some flashy new signage that will be displayed before and during the festival around the Finnish Labour Temple. Watch for it! Our website is undergoing some changes and updating according to this years schedule, please stay tuned! Also, be sure to join us on Facebook, search: Bay Street Film Festival.
You can check us out online at www.baystreetfilmfestival.ca
Or look at our blog at http://baystreetfilmfestival.blogspot.com/
We also have a facebook event for the festival and we ask that people take the time to invite their friends to the event. http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=102240486502853&ref=ts
Tell your friends, and spread the word!
We hope to see you there!
The Bay Street Film Festival Planning Committee
The Bay Street Film Festival serves as a showcase for many International and Canadian films with an emphasis on Northwestern Ontario. We focus on 'Films For The People' meaning films with a social and environmental point of view. Both Live action, documentary as well as animation.
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