Edmonton International Film FestivalDespite Edmonton’s world-famous festival season being plagued by delays and cancellations, this year’s Edmonton International Film Festival has managed to hit the ground running and celebrate cinema with audiences in-person and online.
The Edmonton International Film Festival — or EIFF as it is commonly known — kicked off on October 1 and is running until October 10. The 34th edition of the festival features 30 feature-length films and 22 short-films, all screening at Landmark Cinemas in Edmonton’s City Centre Mall. For those who would still like to experience the festival but are either unable to or uncomfortable with attending in-person, up to 15 feature-length films and 20 short-films will be available through the subscription service Super Channel, as well as Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV.
The slogan for this year’s festival is “Strange times call for the world’s best films,” and there’s certainly been few years as strange as 2020. Adaptation was the name of the game for the EIFF, and in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic there were concerns the festival wouldn’t be happening at all. Eventually the festival organizers settled on a hybrid approach featuring in-person showings as well as the partnership with Super Channel, something which EIFF Executive Director Kerrie Long says was important for festival goers.
“We did a survey with our audiences and we heard time and again from people saying, ‘Please don’t go online. I’m on my computer all day every day and I don’t want to have a festival like that,’” Long said. “So we figured a broadcast was a better way to go [because] a) it’s nationwide, and b) they can watch it on their television.”
“And you don’t have to have cable, you can go through Amazon Prime or Apple TV, because there’s tons of young people who don’t have cable.”
Although the theatres at Landmark Cinemas will be at 25 per cent capacity to respect social distancing guidelines, this year’s EIFF has been able to expand to nine theatres, with most films being screened three times as opposed to once. Film screenings will be synchronized in Landmark Cinemas as well as through Super Channel.
“We’ll have films showing in Landmark Cinemas at the same time that it’s on Super Channel, and so we’ve done prerecorded introductions that will be broadcast on Super Channel,” Long said. “Hopefully it feels a little bit like the audiences are here with us, because we always welcome our guests prior to each film in theatres and on Super Channel.”
The festival will feature films such as the Anthony Hopkins-led drama The Father, as well Possessor, a sci-fi horror flick by Canadian director Brandon Cronenberg (son of horror legend David Cronenberg). The EIFF is also an OSCAR® qualifying short-film festival, with the short-films selected by the festival’s grand jury moving on to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Oscar consideration.
“It took us a long time to get that status. We worked for six years to convince the Academy,” Long said. “The short-films we program here are not like every other film festival. We put everything into it to try and create packages that make sense.”
In addition to moving the festival partially online, this year’s EIFF has also experimented with virtual program guides and live Facebook Q&As following screenings. And although it’s hard to predict what exactly the festival might look like next year, Long imagines that some of those changes could be here to stay.
“I’m looking at my crystal ball and I’m really feeling like in 2021 we will be in the same position as we are now,” Long said. “We will continue the relationship with Super Channel. We did our opening night film last night [and] my inbox was flooded this morning with friends in Toronto and Vancouver and Saskatoon saying, ‘It was so great seeing you on television and watching the opening night film.’”
