Reel link to art film festival
What started as a five-day festival with 50 films from a dozen countries in a single venue has expanded to become a 11-day festival, with 232 films from 30 countries in nine theaters throughout Montreal. Today, it is the largest festival of its kind in the world, devoted to promoting films on art and media art.
This year marks the third partnership between the International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) and Concordia University. The festival, which runs from March 15 to 25, is also celebrating its 30th anniversary.
“I was going to Europe regularly, and I found that there were many interesting films on art that never came to Montreal,” says FIFA Director and Founder René Rozon, who created the festival in 1981. “I thought that it was a good idea to pull them all together and bring them here.”
“Concordia has a very important department of cinema and art, so we thought that it would be a good idea,” says Rozon on partnering with the university. “The location is very good, and we want to try to stimulate the students to attend the festival; a new audience generation. And we want to underline the encouragement that the Faculty has shown towards the arts and cinema.”
This year the festival has paired with Concordia in an unprecedented way: The university’s Faculty of Fine Arts is delivering a winter term course, taught by Nicholas Renaud, that is closely tied to the festival.
“FIFA contributes two tickets for the festival to every student” in the class, says Renaud. “One assignment in my course is to write a short critical paper about one of the films students will see in the festival. Seventy-one students are enrolled, so in return for giving away these tickets, FIFA hopes to attract new audiences for this year and coming years.”
The class was not offered to Fine Arts Major students, but rather as an elective for those interested in an introductory cinema course.
FIFA will also offer the following four Concordia-specific activities for students interested in the festival or in the film industry itself:
Pre-festival Canadian premiere at Concordia
Duki Dror’s Mendelsohn’s Incessant Visions, which tells the story of architect Erich Mendelsohn, will be screened at this open event on campus to increase awareness of the festival among the Anglophone community that Concordia services. Registration required before Friday, February 17.
When: Thursday, February 23 at 6 p.m.
Where: J.A. DeSève Cinema, J.W. McConnell Library Building (1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.), Sir George Williams Campus
Contact: 514-848-2424, ext. 2809 or otudoson@alcor.concordia.ca.
Concordia Screenings
Movies that have a connection to Concordia, be it through screenwriting, production, direction, acting or editing, will be screened at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. Admission is free.
When: Thursday, March 16 to Saturday, March 25. Hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: Room Gazoduc-TQM, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (185 Ste-Catherine St. W.)
Master class
British film maker Jake Auerbach will be holding a master class at Concordia to speak with students and show his film Lucian Freud: Portraits, a documentary about the famed British painter and grandson of Sigmund Freud.
When: Sunday, March 18 at 3:30 p.m.
Where: J.A. DeSève Cinema, J.W. McConnell Library Building (1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.), Sir George Williams Campus
Trade/Market day
As part of the International Market of Films on Art, students are invited to attend a training seminar entitled How to Pitch your Film-on-Art Project // Emerging Professionals, where they will learn techniques for selling film projects to producers, directors and distributors. Training will be presented in French from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and in English from 1 to 3:30 p.m.
In the afternoon, students can attend the roundtable discussion titled Promotion and Broadcasting in Media Arts, where experienced professionals in the film industry will share their expertise and discuss challenges in the evolving world of media art from 4 to 6 p.m.
When: Wednesday, March 21 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (1515 Ste-Catherine St. W.), Sir George Williams Campus
Third-year journalism student Lesley De Marinis is an intern with Concordia’s University Communications Services.
Related links:
• International Festival of Films on Art
• Film screening, February 23: Mendelsohn’s Incessant Visions
• Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
• Jake Auerbach
• "Celebrating 30 years of arts films" — NOW, February 8, 2012