About Us

Since 1999, Planet in Focus has been producing Canada's preeminent international environmental film and video festival. We have been promoting environmental artistic expression in the form of film, video and new media to frame and explore environmental and ecological issues as a catalyst for awareness, discussion and action. Our mission is to encourage the creation and exhibition of a broad spectrum of films and videos exploring environmental themes that celebrate, question and establish varied ways of viewing the state of our world.

Over the past decade we have championed the explosive growth of environmental cinema creating a welcoming forum for environmental art, science, industry and activism to come together. We have also positioned ourselves as creative and cultural leaders in the realm of international environmental film festivals and we have cultivated audiences to celebrate and experience environmental works by Canadian and international filmmakers.

Our achievements have been experienced at our festival, our annual gathering place for filmmakers, distributors, and broadcasters and audiences of all ages as well as over 365 days a year, through our year-round programming. From Dawson City to Ya'an City in Szechuan China, a diverse public has been exposed to our national and international touring programs, and filmmakers have had the opportunity to create new viewing communities around their work. Our goal is to continue to cultivate filmmakers and to build audiences through creative, thoughtful, entertaining, and provocative films and videos.

But this is not all that we do. Youth are central to our programming mandate and we have unique ways of inspiring a new generation of informed artists and audiences. We have been nurturing video artists at our hands-on video workshops and their works are screened at our festival and telecast as well. Students and teachers from across the province of Ontario are having the new environmental curriculum augmented by creating their own PIF mini-festivals, with selections of works from our Educational Resource Library, a treasure trove of over 3,000 environmental films. The public can access these works on a year-round basis for research and programming purposes. Our programs are portable and we seek to expand public access to them through a myriad of collaborative and partnering opportunities on multiple platforms.

In ten years Planet in Focus has transformed the cultural landscape. We have promoted the creation and dissemination of environmental artistic expression and conversely, we have encouraged the introduction of ecological processes in the production, distribution and screening of films and videos through such initiatives as Green Screen Toronto. Ten years ago, being green was not a mainstream goal nor was it clearly understood as having cultural implications. Perhaps 10 years ago was a transformative moment. We are proud to have done our part and will be ever vigilant in continuing to do so as we move forward.