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Guelph Film Festival to bring 30 films in 30 days

The festival will run for 30 days starting Nov. 5 and will end on Dec. 5 and will include online and in-person screenings
20211015GFF
Still image from Firestarter, a story of Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Starting next month, The Guelph Film Festival will begin to run its line up of 30 documentaries telling stories of Guelph and places around the world. 

The festival will run for 30 days starting Nov. 5 and will end on Dec. 5 and will include online and in-person screenings.

A new collection of three feature documentaries will be available to view each Friday. All short documentaries will be available for the duration of the 30-day festival. The festival will wrap with a Last Chance Weekend, allowing viewers to catch up on what they missed. 

“Last year’s festival was such a success we have expanded our line-up and online event program for this year,” said Nathan Lawr, operations director at the Guelph Film Festival in a press release.

“The Guelph Film Festival Online 2021 On-Demand platform will look and feel very much like any other online film-watching platform such as Netflix or Crave.”

The festival will include a diverse range of stories such as The Magnitude of All Things, an exploration of grief as a call to action for the planet; Threshold, a poetic autobiography of a mother as she follows the gender transition of her adolescent son; and Arica, the story of toxic colonialism in the Chilean desert town of Arica and an afflicted community fighting for justice.

It will also showcase films about whale sharks, the realities of tree-planting and even one small turtle’s search for happiness. 

Lawr said online events will also include discussions with filmmakers of the Indigenous categories of film such as Stories from Land Back Camp and Walking with Plants.

The festival will close with an in-person screening of the film Lady Buds, about women at the centre of the now-legal cannabis industry. It will be showcased online and at Heritage Hall in partnership with the Guelph Black Heritage Society. 

This event will also feature a panel discussion about the impacts of stigma in medical and recreational cannabis spaces. 

This year, the festival will debut its Community Stories series which includes micro-documentaries about Guelph made by local filmmakers. 

Each pass, offered on a sliding scale from $35 to $75 ($200+ value) will give viewers On-Demand access to the festival’s  online platform for the duration of the festival. Viewers will have access to four exclusive live streaming spotlight events featuring panel discussions with guests from around the world.

“As one of the oldest documentary film festivals in the world, the Guelph Film Festival is committed to presenting films that embody and explore our commitment to social justice, our environment, and community building. We believe documentary film can be a catalyst for conversations about change in a time of crisis, as well as being an opportunity to learn and uplift,” said Lawr.

“Our programming always includes 50 per cent Canadian films, 50 per cent films with female identifying directors, and 50 per cent films with diverse directors (BIPOC/LGBTQ2A+/Deaf and/or Disabled). These are not just targets, they are our rules. We are proud to provide a platform for such a diverse array of voices.”


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