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April and May have been busy months at the PIF office. While I can’t yet divulge the titles in store for our September festival program, I can say that we have an exciting array of Canadian and international films. They range in topics from climate change to social and environmental displacement, road stories, quirky, funky entertaining stories, probing exploratory documentaries and poetic cinematic works — all meeting our criteria and understanding of “environment as contested terrain.” We have it all: drama, documentary, experimental and animated works from China, India, Belgium, Spain, Argentina, Egypt, Denmark, Israel, UK, US, Russia, Iran, Palestine, Taiwan, The Philippines. Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the Dominican Republic, Australia and Canada. Festival Programmers Min Sook Lee and Richard Story must be commended for sifting through over 300 submissions and guiding the Selection Committee of Brenda Goldstein, Sharon Boatswain, Ed Barreveld, Michel Cader, Caroline Underwood and myself in what we believe will be an outstanding festival program this year. As well, thanks must go to Caroline Underwood for offering The Nature of Things facilities to the selection committee for viewing the films.
Also in May, PIF took part in Nature in Focus, an amateur photography contest co-presented by PIF and CBC’s The Nature of Things. The jury was comprised of renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky, Michael Alder (Executive Producer, The Nature of Things), Tom Cruickshank (Editor, Harrowsmith Country Life magazine), Greg Flasch (National Manager, Advertising & Communications, Nikon Canada) and myself. We reviewed photographs in three categories —Your Habitat; Sacred Species and Acts of Nature. The results will surprise and delight you! Winning photographs will be published in the September-October issue of Harrowsmith Country Life and it is our intention to exhibit the photographs at this year’s festival, and to make it part of the Best of PIF tour in 2006. Should you have a venue where you believe we should show our films and exhibit these works, we would be more than pleased to hear from you.
We have been very active in our outreach with two successful events, one to the corporate community and one to our partners in the non-profit sector — NGO’s, environmental groups and community organizations keen on what we have to offer. Thanks go to Kim Smither, PIF Foundation Board member, for securing a terrific “lunch and learn” event at Labatt’s House, where we immersed potential corporate sponsors in some PIF culture. Also thanks to Nidhi Tandon, Board Chair, and her great Partnering Committee for hosting an outstanding partnering cultivation evening at 215 Spadina. A number of spin-offs are already in the works as a result of these outreach efforts.
PIF is also very pleased to have Ali Choi, a business student from Korea, fulfill an internship at our office for the next two months. She is assisting in all areas of running a festival office and we hope that she will have some valuable experiences at PIF to take back home with her.
In June, I will be extending our international outreach by attending the Ecocine Festival in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. We will have a special PIF presentation of films and I will be participating in the international jury and a panel. This partnering is a result of the efforts of Augusto Mathias, a member of our Advisory Council, former PIF Festival Director and Founder Mark Haslam and Ecocine Festival Director Ariane Porto. It is our hope to build a long-standing partnership to promote and build awareness of the films, filmmakers and issues that each region in each hemisphere is dealing with and to further other creative relationships. We have much to learn and gain from each other and we can only do so by fostering these ties.
Stay tuned to my next report, as we pick up momentum preparing for Planet in Focus’ September film festival. — Candida Paltiel, Festival Director
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