It’s 20 years for the Hamilton Film Festival
The annual celebration of local and independent films will screen 108 works this year, with at least 25 of them coming from filmmakers in Hamilton. Founder and co-director Nathan Fleet says you will ‘cleanse your cinematic palette’ and experience movies you would never otherwise see.
The Hamilton Film Festival is raising the curtain on its 20th anniversary and founder and festival director Nathan Fleet never saw that coming.
“The years just kind of go by and then all of a sudden you're at 20.”
Fleet says he had no idea at the outset the work and effort it would take to get the HFF off the ground. But it’s now a finely tuned machine and Fleet says he can now reflect on the impact of creating an independent film festival.
“The stuff that we show here are movies that you may never, ever see again, because these are movies that don't go the traditional distribution route or they don't have distribution. So in some ways, they fall through the cracks, and the filmmaker is the only one who's going to get this movie out, so that's why they go the film festival route. We’re truly an independent film festival. We don't do a pre-selection of movies from distribution companies in order to pad out our schedule,” says Fleet.
“And I always say, you know, if you want to destroy the algorithm, come to our festival, because these are movies that are not going to be fed to you based on what your previous search history is. You're going to sit down and you're going to watch a movie that you never would have imagined you’d see. You probably never would have searched it up. It's going to cleanse your cinematic palette.”
The festival, running Oct. 17-26, has been gaining particular momentum since it moved into the Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre four years ago.
“Since we’ve moved there, I think I've enjoyed (the festival) more than I ever have. I have a film school that I run here, too, and so it feels like we actually have a home base.”
The majority of films play at Peller Hall inside the Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre, with others happening at the Westdale Theatre and the Playhouse Cinema.
The Hamilton Film Festival began at The Staircase, out of its indie experimental film screening called Lost and Underground. Kathy Garneau, the owner of the Dundurn Street North venue at the time, suggested maybe it was time for a city film festival.
“The manager at the time, Rob Newberry, and I sat down. We were like, what are we going to call it? And I said, ‘Well, let's just call it the Hamilton Film Festival.’ And that's how it was born. It just started at a table at Lost and Underground in 2004.”
Fleet, was wondering on a film called Lucky 7 at the time and he says lots of people questioned why he’d want to film in Hamilton, let alone set a movie in the city.
“Now everybody is proud of Hamilton and Hamilton is Home, is a big thing, but back then, it didn't resonate as much as outside of the city as it does now,” he says.
“My selfish motivation to get involved was I just didn't want to go to Toronto anymore to watch indie films. I wanted to do it here in the city and I didn't want to get on the bus and go watch industry panels in Toronto. I thought we could do it right here in Hamilton.”
In the first few years of the festival, Fleet had to scramble to find movies from local filmmakers to screen or to convince industry experts to participate in panel talks. It’s been a long time since that’s been the case. Filmmakers and industry folks approach him now and this year’s festival attracted more than 700 submissions.
“I think that kind of shows that we've landed in a good spot and that people see us as an important event. People say that one of their first glimpses into the Hamilton film scene was through the Hamilton Film Festival.”
The first screenings at The Staircase were in a 68-seat theatre. And now some HFF films sell out in more than 400-seat spaces.
Fleet says the growth of the festival is both a cause and effect of an expanding film sector in Hamilton. There are simply more film professionals living in Hamilton now, but HFF has also become an important outlet to get out the work of local filmmakers and to make a name for the city as a film town.
Fleet hears that people are making films specifically to submit them to the HFF and others are including Hamilton as part of their film festival strategy. That’s especially true since the HFF became a qualifying festival for the Canadian Screen Awards a few years ago.
“So that doesn’t just bring us more films. It brings us I would say, more quality films that are really worthy of nomination.”
Of the 108 films slated for this year’s festival, at least 25 were shot in Hamilton, and the majority are from across Canada. Over the years, there are submissions from more than 50 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Germany, Russia, and India this year.
Since it began, HFF has screened well over 1,000 films and it is now a Top 100 reviewed festival, out of 10,000 worldwide film festivals.
The HFF film school, which has educated hundreds of people from 8 to 80, serves to fill a pipeline of local talent that benefits the festival. Those enrolled in a script-to-screen program for short films have the chance to see their films at the HFF
“Maybe a dozen films every year that we produce through our film school go on to screen at the Hamilton Film Festival so that is a full script-to-screen experience.”
Some highlights of this year’s festival that Fleet points to is Cast Aside the Clouds screening on opening day (Oct. 17, 2 p.m.). It is co-written, produced and directed by Mary Darling, an Ancaster resident who was the executive producer of the CBC hit Little Mosque on the Prairie.
Stealing the Sky (Oct. 19, 6:30 p.m.) is directed by long-time beloved and award-winning actor and director Megan Follows. Jersey Boy (Oct. 20, 6:30 p.m.) was filmed in Hamilton and chronicles the story of a young Sikh boy who is shattered by a family tragedy in the wake of 9/11.
Saturday, Oct. 18 is an industry day, presented by the newly formed Hamilton Film Board and the City of Hamilton, that includes a film pitch competition for movies shooting in Hamilton and entering pre-production within the next six months, panels dedicated to screenwriting, distribution, and the Christmas movies that film in and around Hamilton. That last one is open to the public.
The festival also includes a block of comedy shorts, drama shorts, thriller shorts, and documentary shorts, along with full-length features. From Monday to Friday, documentaries will be screened at 12:30 p.m.
In a fully Hamilton moment, there will be a screening of Behind the Castle Doors: The Origin of the Hilarious House of Frightenstein on Oct. 18 at 6:30 p.m. Cast and crew from the 1970s cult classic filmed at the former CHCH building on King Street West will be on hand for a Q&A after the documentary.
Another film that Fleet highlights is Junkie Run, a dark comedy feature filmed in a dive bar in Hamilton. It will be played on the last day of the festival, Oct. 26, at the Playhouse Cinema.
Director Kire Paputts is a filmmaker “we have our eye on at all times,” says Fleet. “He makes great films that are off the beaten path.”
Fleet says if you’ve never been to the film festival before and you really want to experience its vibe, come to the opening gala at the Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre on Friday, Oct. 17. It runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and filmmakers and actors join film buffs to mingle, network, and take pictures on a red carpet. At 8 p.m., short films made by Hamilton filmmakers will be screened. “That to me is a representation of the entire festival. That community feeling. There's not some mysterious world of filmmaking where people are famous and you can never reach them. They're all just regular working people making movies because they love it.”
