Cinefest 'friendly' to participants

BY BILL BRADLEY

Cinéfest, which ended last Sunday, has an edge over much larger film festivals in Canada, said many of those involved.

Organizers said the numbers who attend keep growing. Up to 30,000 people attended this year during the nine-day event.

Bill Rock, a retired technician with Imperial Oil in Sudbury, said he may have the answer.

“This film festival is personable. The Toronto Film Festival is impersonal. That is the difference. Here you can talk to directors and actors. There you can’t. That’s why I come back, though I live on Manitoulin Island now,” he said.

Rock said when Paul Gross, the director of Passchendaele, was at the reception after the movie, a friend of his had a question about the film’s music score. She is very passionate about music, he added.

“She went up to talk to him. They ended up in a very good discussion. Gross is going to send her a disk of the film score. That is what I mean by personable. That is what makes this festival so great,” he said.

Another plus is the friendliness between participants, said Rock. “I met an elderly couple from Michigan only briefly, earlier in the week. But every so often we bump into each other. We acknowledge each other like old friends. This festival attracts people from all over, yet, we are a community during the week.”

The fact that the films are all in one place also helps, said Rock.

“In Toronto, the films are spread out geographically, from downtown to North York. It is too hard to get around. Here it is compact. You can more easily choose your movies.”

Tammy Frick, festival director, said she would agree that the key to the success is the grassroots nature of Cinéfest.
That sense of community extends to the volunteers.

Karen Bass, a bartender in the hospitality trailer, said she loves to volunteer. “This is my second year. I just love volunteering. It is so much fun. I meet a lot of interesting people. Everyone is always happy in the hospitality trailer,” she said.

Melanie Bosnjak, volunteer usher, said she has attended the festival for four years. This year she decided to help out.

“I volunteer because I like the film festival,” she noted.

Managing director Patrick O’Hearn said last Friday there were more than 200 volunteers who helped out in venues across the city.

This year 130 movies were screened including shorts, including two children’s films.

“We screened in front of about 1,300 kids, which is a record for us. We had about 500 for Asterix today.”

Charles Martin Smith, director of Stone of Destiny, said at an industry forum, that Cinéfest has more of a cross-section of people than the Toronto Film festival. “That helps me gauge the public reaction to my film. For me that is important,” he said.

In fact, one participant, Amanda McLachlan Darling, an English professor, said the film was great and it had a lot of laughs.  “It was the best film I saw here. There was a standing ovation afterwards,” she said.

Sponsors such as Christian Schweikart, sales consultant with the Sony Store, said Cinéfest is great for his store and the community.

“It is our sixth year with Cinéfest. It helps get our name out. We share the same values,” he said.

The success of Cinéfest is now spreading across Canada, said O’Hearn.

“We started a film circuit in Sudbury that now has gone on nation-wide and even reaches into other countries at times. We invite other programmers of film festivals to come to Sudbury to take in our films and that, in turn, helps them program their own film festivals. It started here in Sudbury as the northern film circuit group. Now it is a huge group.

To celebrate the 20th year of the festival, a number of friends of the festival awards were presented to Vale Inco, MCTV and festival founders such as Cam Haynes.

Haynes said he was impressed by where Tammy Frick has taken the film festival. He officially left the festival ion in 1995 but helped out his successor Tammy Frick in 1996.

“I think she has done an amazing job. After 20 years and coming back I can’t help but be so proud of this event,” said Haynes. “The first years were the hardest because, who knew (what would happen)? I did not know myself. I just hoped it would work out. And it did. I am honoured by that,” said Haynes.