The Montreal World Film Festival, founded in 1977, was one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF. The public festival is held annually in late August in the city of Montreal in Quebec. Unlike the Toronto International Film Festival, which has a greater focus on Canadian and other North American films, the Montreal World Film Festival has a larger diversity of films from all over the world.. The festival was cancelled in 2019 and no longer exists.
Festival
Programmes
The World Film Festival is organised in various sections:
Prior to the beginning of each event, the Festival’s board of directors appoints the juries who hold sole responsibility for choosing which films will receive the blessing of a WFF award. Jurors are chosen from a wide range of international artists, based on their body of work and respect from their peers.
Awards
Competition
Grand Prix des Amériques
Special Grand Prix of the jury
Best Director
Best Actress
Best Actor
Best Screenplay
Best Artistic Contribution
Innovation Award
Zenith Award for The Best First Fiction Feature Film,
Short Films
In addition the festival-going public votes for the films they liked best in different categories:
Golden Zenith winners for The Best Feature Film in competition First Films World Competition
History
The stated goal of the Montreal World Film Festival is to:
encourage cultural diversity and understanding between nations, to foster the cinema of all continents by stimulating the development of quality cinema, to promote filmmakers and innovative works, to discover and encourage new talents, and to promote meetings between cinema professionals from around the world.
The president of the Montreal World Film Festival is Serge Losique; its vice-president is Danièle Cauchard. Losique's management has been controversial. The WFF lost the sponsorship of its previous government cultural funders, SODEC and Telefilm Canada as a result of disagreements with Losique in 2004. Subsequently, these two funding agencies announced that they would support a new international film festival, called the New Montreal FilmFest, to be managed by Spectra Entertainment and headed by Daniel Langlois. After the inaugural edition of that new festival was unsuccessful, it was abandoned early in 2006. As of July 2007, Losique's lawsuits against the funding agencies were dropped, paving the way for a restoration of government funding.
Impact
According to a survey by Léger Marketing:
Approximately 385,000 attended the 2008 World Film Festival. Of these, 323,352 were local filmgoers and 61,591 were out-of-town visitors.
Among visitors, 27% were less than 35 years old, 34% were 35 to 54 years old and 39% were more than 54 years old.
During their stay in the greater Montreal area, visitors attracted here by the Festival spent an average of $921.60. Visitors from outside the province spent on average twice as much as visitors from Quebec, and this money was spent specifically within the framework of their attendance at the Festival.
Tourist spending generated by visitors to the Montreal World Film Festival is estimated at $21 million.
Controversy
In 2005, Losique first announced and later withdrew the film Karla from the WFF after the principal sponsor of the festival, Air Canada, threatened to withdraw its sponsorship of the festival if that film were included. The film — about Karla Homolka, a young woman who was convicted of manslaughter and who served twelve years in prison for her part in the kidnapping, sex-enslavement, rapes and murders of teenage girls, including her own sister, in a case said to involve ephebophilia — was controversial in Canada, with many calling for its boycott throughout the country. In 2015 a group of employees claimed they were not paid. In 2016 many of the employees resigned citing poor leadership and financial uncertainty amongst other issues. In an interview with CTV News, Gazette entertainment columnist Bill Brownstein referred to Losique as having a "Napoleonic complex" and not "playing well with the other children" resulting in government and sponsors withdrawing their funding support. In 2019, the WFF announced that it is cancelling the 43rd edition of the event, leaving behind speculations about its later continuation.
