Sep. 21, 2011 - Issue #831: The Sandwich Issue
Prevue
Reeling outward
The Edmonton International Film Fest expands
Though the past few years have seen it moving closer to a fully centralized location, the Edmonton International Film Festival is spreading outward from its usual downtown base this year.
Instead of simply occupying Empire City Centre, some satellite screening locations have appeared: the Haven Social Club to the west, the Garneau theatre to the south and the Capitol Theatre, newly reconstructed at Fort Edmonton Park, will all shoulder some of the festival's cinematic weight.
"We're hoping it will bring a new audience to the festival," says Kerrie Long, festival producer. "Maybe people don't want to leave their neighbourhood and drive downtown, so we're coming to the community, if you will."
Long admits that the festival's expansion was a little farther than they ideally would have liked; some challenges emerged in securing the usual amount of space it takes up downtown. "We would've gone to the Haven Social Club anyways," she says. "I'm not so sure we would have purposely fragmented the festival so much."
Regardless, the festival she's helped program seems to be one that engages with the world in a direct, eye-to-eye level: though there's no shortage of features and fictitious stories going up on EIFF screens over the next week, there seems a particular abundance of documentaries.
"Every year I refer to it as being very organic," Long explains. "What we end up programming is driven a lot by what filmmakers are making. And it appears that, these days, anyway, we're seeing a lot more documentary films being made. So I guess that's just a sign of the times.
"I still believe we have quite a variety of filmmaking," she continues. "We have at least 10 or 15 countries being represented, so there's a diversity in terms of where the films are coming from. I think we're staying true to who we are. We really try to focus on being a festival of discovery, and not trying to be just a carbon-copy of other international festivals. We try to be a festival that's true to who we are as Edmontonians and Albertans, and try to program the stuff that we know our audiences are like versus ... I noticed this year, no slag intended, that Toronto tends to program more films that will get wide release at some point, and we have a lot fewer of those. So really the only time to see these films is at our festival."
EIFF
Fri, Sep 23 – Sat, Oct 1
Edmonton International Film Festival
Full schedule at edmontonfilmfest.com
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