Celebrating Its 20th Anniversary
Story by Vatsal Chorasiya
Photography by Heike Delmore
The Windsor International Film Festival turns twenty in 2024, celebrating a major milestone.
“We couldn’t be prouder, the life span of film festivals in North America is two years, so the fact that we’re here celebrating twenty years is extraordinary,” said Executive Director and Chief Programmer, Vincent Georgie.
The Windsor International Film Festival was founded by late businessman Mark Boscariol in July 2005.
“It wasn’t set up necessarily to be just a real film festival,” Georgie said. “It was set up to be an activity to bring people downtown.”
Ted Bezaire, a local filmmaker, has been a part of the Windsor film industry since 2005, and considers the Windsor International Film Festival as an opportunity to reach a broader audience.
“The fact that the Windsor International Film Festival is giving opportunities to local filmmakers to put their work in front of an audience is a great thing,” said Bezaire. “Sometimes, you put in all this hard work and it’s hard to get some films out in film festivals, the fact that WIFF is supporting and helping local filmmakers is definitely a huge help.”
According to Georgie, Windsor International Film Festival’s biggest achievement is the increase in the number of audiences from 2,000 people in 2005 to expecting over 47,000 people in 2024. Another great achievement is the expansion quality of the program where about 200 feature films are shown from around 50 different countries in a span of 11 days.
In 2019, the Toronto International Film Festival awarded the Windsor International Film Festival as the largest volunteer-run film festival in Canada.
“It is extraordinary to think that, across Canada, we are the largest volunteer-run film festival,” said Georgi. “I think a part of WIFF’s success is that it’s been built by the people in Windsor, and we can be very proud of that.”
According to Georgie, the Windsor International film festival faced their biggest challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“COVID was a huge factor because live entertainment was really one of the most dangerous things that you could be doing during that time,” said Georgie. “COVID was an enormous challenge for us.”
Instead of looking at it as a drawback, the Windsor International Film Festival saw the pandemic as an opportunity and introduced multiple events and programs such as “WIFF Under The Stars”, an open screening event by the Windsor riverfront and the “Mark Boscariol 40-Hour Flick Fest” in which filmmakers have to make a short film within forty-eight hours.
“When COVID happened, it was a shock, and we had to make some major decisions. We quickly realized that putting on a safe, excellent and traditional film festival that year was not possible,” said Georgie. “And that is how we got the great idea to do WIFF under the stars.”
The WIFF under the stars took place on the front lawn of the Aquatic Centre from June 7 to June 9, where around twenty films were screened including local, Canadian and International films.
According to festival organizers, around 1500 people attended the event.
After WIFF under the stars, the Windsor International Film Festival organized another event called the WIFF Local Retrospective as part of their twenty-year celebration on June 21 to 23 at the Capitol theater in Downtown Windsor.
The WIFF local retrospective gives an opportunity to Windsor area filmmakers to showcase their works.
Gavin Booth, a local filmmaker, had his film “Last Call” screened at the WIFF Local Retrospective.
“I think the event is great, the festival has been around for twenty years there are lots of local movies that have been filmed in Windsor, not a lot of people in Windsor know that many films are made here so dedicating an entire weekend to letting people see all of the short films, documentaries and feature films created here is super exciting,” said Booth. “It just helps the filmmakers to continue finding supporters, businesses and locations that will help them to make films in the future.”
According to the Windsor International Film Festival, there is another program called “Women of WIFF”, an annual celebration of women, where a captivating film is selected as the official Women of WIFF selection.
Locals created this festival feature to ensure that people were aware of women’s experiences, their opinions and perspective.
According to Georgie, the Windsor International Film Festival offers the second largest cash prize for the best Canadian film in Canada, which is $25,000. This prize goes directly to the filmmaker without any restrictions.
The Windsor International Film Festival not only benefits local filmmakers but also the tourism and food industries of Windsor, especially Downtown.
“We are very proud of all the economic impact of WIFF,” adds Georgie. “The tourists are coming in here and the audience members, they are eating, drinking, shopping, staying in hotels, coming by plane, train and automobile, that all adds up. So, we are proud to be economically impactful as well as being part of the revitalization of our downtown.”
Local Filmmakers are excited and happy for the Windsor International Film Festival accomplishing twenty years of success, one of which is Ken Amlin.
“I want to offer my congratulations to Vincent Georgie and everyone at the Windsor International Film Festival on this milestone,” said Amlin. “That’s an incredible achievement. I hope twenty more and twenty more after that with continuing growth and success. I can’t wait to see where they take the festival in the future, and I know that I will be right there supporting and participating as much as I can.”
According to Georgie, the vision of WIFF is to be a nationally recognized and industry-leading cultural destination.
“So, we are on our way to being nationally recognized by audiences and the film industry across the country,” said Georgie. “Industry leading; making sure we’re bringing the very best films and the very best filmmakers and cultural destination; making sure WIFF is a major stop annually, for people’s cultural traveling.”
The Windsor International Film Festival 2024 runs from October 24th to November 3rd.
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