Windsor International Film Festival cancelled again. But the summer riverfront drive-in is now permanent. And there may even be an indoor pop-up later this year.

These articles first appeared in Windsor Detroit Film's companion webnewspaper www.WindsorOntarioNews.com June 11.

While the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) has cancelled its regular 10-day event again this fall – for the second year in a row – there still may be films in the pipeline for a sort of “pop-up” mini festival later this year or early next. Director Vincent Georgie said once the film distribution system gets back up and running, after major disruption because of Covid, and matters like health and venue availability are nailed down, programmers may schedule several films over a weekend indoors. “As soon as we sort of think, hey, there’s some sense of normalcy or whatever we’re going to pilot test, yeah, pop up a couple of days with five six movies - and really with only the goal of seeing how people are feeling,” he said. The festival announced this week it was cancelling the 10-day event, Canada’s largest volunteer run film festival and was in its 15th year in 2019. Georgie told WON.com this was largely due to films not being available from distributors, even this far in advance of the mid-autumn festival. “Speaking to all of our distributors across Canada they’re all like, we still don’t really have a handle on fall 2021, everything has a question mark on it and we still can’t get into any agreements,” he said. (165 films were booked in 2019.) There was also the question of venues like the Capitol and Chrysler theatres. These facilities themselves are “unsure what their operational plans will be even when it’s legally allowed to go back to sort of normal,” he said. As well, the festival’s “core” audience are retirees, many of whom buy 10-day passes. This is also the same demographic most at risk for Covid-19 and therefore would likely be “most reticent” to attend, said Georgie. Finally, though more countries are seeing their vaccine numbers increase there are still travel restrictions. That makes it almost impossible to fly in filmmakers which is a major festival cachet. “Filmmakers are really reticent to travel if at all,” he said. But don’t despair. WIFF, like every other organization, is monitoring the state of health, vaccinations and eased public gathering rules, and could in fact hold some mini event late this year or during the winter. “Could that happen in November or December – absolutely,” Georgie said.

WIFF Under The Stars, the Windsor International Film Festival’s bow to Covid restrictions last year as a way of showing movies in a socially-distanced way, will become an annual event, “Covid or no Covid,” festival director Vincent Georgie says. And expect an expansion in this year’s program slated for August, from two and a half weeks to a full three weeks. The drive-in, along the riverfront at the city’s Festival Plaza, proved a hugely popular event, with almost 100 per cent sell outs and about 7000 people attending. “I want to ballpark it at a solid five more days.” Georgie said of the expanded length. WIFF had to pivot last year because Covid restrictions – and the lack of new films in the pipeline – made it impossible to hold the normal annual 10-day festival in the fall. The drive-in was perfect since people could watch movies safely from their cars. “Drive-in was clearly super popular,” he said. “People love it.” Films were shown not only at night but during the day for families. “Because we invested in doing an LED wall we’re able to do daytime screenings,” Georgie, who also is the fest’s chief programmer, said. “So that really hit the nail on the head for families.” He said he’s already getting requests from sponsors and community partners of booking entire screenings for things like “staff appreciation.” WIFF organizers noticed something different. The market for the drive-in was substantially different for the regular festival, which shows many more foreign and independent films. The drive-in screened popular mass market films from years past. Georgie said about three-quarters of attendees had never gone to the main festival. He said the film selection was in part mandated by technical matters. Foreign films require subtitles and they couldn’t be viewed easily from parked cars. And more serious films, like about sex abuse in the Catholic Church (earlier screened at the fest) were downers when “sitting in a car on the Detroit River on a Saturday night.” The plaza holds 87 vehicles. The bottom line is WIFF Under The Stars is here to stay, even when the regular festival resumes. “It’s very clear to us how much people love drive- in,” Georgie said. This week WIFF announced the cancellation – for a second year – of the main festival. Georgie blamed this on the long timeline for booking films and the film world, production-wide, still reeling from the fallout of Covid-19. But he said a “pop-up” type weekend event of a few films later in the year may still be possible.