The 24th annual Barrie Film Festival is back this week with a full slate of films and a few ways for audiences to enjoy them.
The festival begins today and runs until Oct. 3 with a combination of in-person and virtual screenings. The drive-in portion of the event also begins Thursday.
One of the jurors for this year's event is an Innisfil resident whose movie, The Cuban, was made on a low budget and released during the pandemic, yet still worked its way into the 2021 Oscar race.
“In terms of local arts and culture, having a film festival is essential," Sergio Navaretta told BarrieToday. "It is so important to recognize and honour films and create conversation about them.
"It is even more important nowadays with the pandemic to show how important the role of art is in society, whether it is music o film. Art is needed as a window into the world," he added.
Navaretta’s role as judge focused on the short-film categories, where he also selected the films that will be showcased.
His film, The Cuban, premiered last year at Ontario Place in a drive-in capacity to follow COVID-19 social-distancing measures. Navaretta said it may have seemed not the most ideal way to debut a film, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.
“The old became new again and having grown up near a drive-in, it was very nostalgic for me,” Navaretta said. “To reimagine how to do things, in 2020, was quite an experience. This year’s Barrie festival will be just the same — it will feel like a time capsule.”
As a judge for the shorts portion of the festival, Navaretta says he was pleased to see so many different films being represented from all over the world and in all genres.
“There is animation, live action, scripted, documentary and an array of experienced filmmakers and emerging filmmakers,” he said. “To try and decide which ones deserve to be selected is almost impossible.
"That was a very challenging task because the quality of films is very high and for me as an established filmmaker it was inspiring to see that people can create at a time of so much adversity.”
Navaretta says he's also eager to see the next crop of films as more pandemic-era work is released. He feels we are on the cusp of a “renaissance.”
“I think there is a resurgence; I saw it in 2020 and it looks to me like a renaissance. Maybe part of that is survival, but now, 18 months later, there is an explosion. And to use an old cliche, diamonds are created under pressure,” Navaretta said. “I’m seeing this every day — the bigger the challenge, the bigger the adversity, the more we want to tell stories and create."
Barrie Film Festival director Claudine Benoit says it has been a difficult event to plan during a pandemic, because there were many challenges to organizers.
"We had to start with what we felt confident we could deliver within the current restrictions, which was to build a hybrid festival of drive-in and online offerings," Benoit told BarrieToday. "Many audience members appreciated the freedom to watch films on their own schedule at our last online film festival, so we maintained the focus on seeking out great content."
Benoit also says the loss of the longtime festival venue, the Uptown Theatre on Dunlop Street West, was hard because there was more than 25 years of history in that space.
That being said, Benoit is excited about the new relationships that have been built.
"From the nostalgic magic at the Sunset Drive-In, to entering the virtual landscape with online streaming, to the state of the art experience at Galaxy Cinemas, all these avenues have allowed us to continue to share our love of film, but in new ways," she said.
"We are looking forward to welcoming back our audiences so we can start to enjoy the shared experience of viewing a film together," Benoit added.
The Barrie Film Festival begins Thursday, Sept. 23 with the drive-in portion happening until Sept. 26 at Sunset Barrie, located at 134 Line 4 South.
The in-person event will happen on Sept. 30 at Galaxy Cinema at 72 Commerce Park Dr., followed by a post-screening gathering at Kenzington Burger Bar on Bryne Drive.
The virtual films will be shown online from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3.
All ticket and time information is available at the website by clicking here.
