Montreal World Film Festival

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The Montreal World Film Festival (WFF) — Festival des Films du Monde - Montréal (FFM) — is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF.[1]

According to its official website:

The goal of the Montreal World Film Festival (Montreal International Film Festival) is to encourage cultural diversity and understanding between nations, to foster the cinema of all continents by stimulating the development of quality cinema, to promote filmmakers and innovative works, to discover and encourage new talents, and to promote meetings between cinema professionals from around the world.[2]

The president of the Montreal World Film Festival (WFF) is Serge Losique; its vice-president is Danièle Cauchard.[3] Losique's management has been controversial. The WFF lost the sponsorship of its previous government cultural funders, SODEC and Telefilm Canada as a result of disagreements with Losique in 2004. Subsequently, these two funding agencies announced that they would support a new international film festival, called the New Montreal FilmFest (FIFM), to be managed by Spectra Entertainment and headed by Daniel Langlois (of SoftImage and Ex-Centris and the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma). After the inaugural edition of that new festival was unsuccessful, it was abandoned early in 2006. As of July 2007, Losique's lawsuits against the funding agencies were dropped, paving the way for a restoration of government funding. [1]

In 2005, Losique first announced and later withdrew the film Karla from the WFF after the principal sponsor of the festival, Air Canada, threatened to withdraw its sponsorship of the festival if that film were included. The film — about Karla Homolka, a young woman who was convicted of manslaughter and who served twelve years in prison for her part in the kidnapping, sex-enslavement, rapes and murders of teenage girls, including her own sister, in a case said to involve ephebophilia — was controversial in Canada, with many calling for its boycott throughout the country.[4]

Unlike the Toronto International Film Festival, its counterpart in English-speaking Canada, the Montreal World Film Festival focuses on various kinds of films from all over the world but features few if any produced in Hollywood.

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ See its history in the archives of its official website. The first edition of this festival occurred in 1977. The thirtieth edition is 24 August through 4 September 2006.
  2. ^ Information from the home page. Cf. the "Manifesto" of the organization for its perspective and goals in the context of its account of its history.
  3. ^ See "contact" links at the official website.
  4. ^ See "Canadian Distributors to Release Homolka Film." CBC News 10 Jan. 2006, accessed 31 Aug. 2006.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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Cinema of Canada