The Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film Festival (WSFF), founded by Brenda Sherwood in 1994, was an annual film festival held over several days in Toronto, Ontario, in June, at The Annex-Yorkville area venues; including the Bloor Cinema, the University of Toronto, and the Isabel Bader Theatre, among others. As well as film screenings, the festival hosted parties and the CFC's annual picnic.[1]
The WSFF held accreditation, and was recognized as a qualifying event for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) short film awards. This means that certain award-winners at the WSFF were eligible to be nominated for the Oscars, Genies, and BAFTAs awards.[2]
In 2012, the festival received 4,768 submissions from 113 countries, making it the largest short film festival in North America at that time.[3][4] The festival was described in the Canadian Encyclopedia as "a popular and productive meeting place for audiences, filmmakers, buyers and sellers interested in the art and commerce of making movies in short form",[5] and this was reflected in the Short Films Big Ideas Symposium, which featured master classes and panel discussions focused on professional development for those involved in the industry.
Each year the festival offered a celebrity program, which featured films with actors such as Scott Thompson, Judi Dench, David Duchovny, Michael Fassbender, Max von Sydow, Natalie Portman, Dick Van Dyke, Don Cheadle, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Gérard Depardieu, Stephen Fry, and Anthony Hopkins, among others. The festival also screened films by celebrity directors, including Errol Morris, Spike Jonze, Rachel Weisz, Talmage Cooley, Courteney Cox, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.[6][4] In addition to the annual screenings in June, the festival also ran a monthly screening series called A World of Shorts.
- ^ Katie Bailey, "Photo gallery: It's been a ‘short’ 2 weeks for the CFC". Playback, June 9, 2011.
- ^ Hickman, Angela. "The Worldwide Short Film Festival gets ready to roll out the red carpet" Archived 2012-07-28 at archive.today The National Post, Toronto, 11 May 2011
- ^ Droganes, Constance. "Rachel Weisz makes directorial debut at T.O. festival". ctv.ca. CTV News. Archived from the original on 2 January 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
- ^ a b Kinos-Goodin, Jesse. "Worldwide Short Film Festival: Size doesn't matter with these films". Archived from the original on 2013-01-29. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
- ^ Handling, Piers. "Canadian Film Centre". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
- ^ Slotek, Jim. "Short and sweet: Worldwide Short Film Festival long on (celebrity) talent". The Toronto Sun. Retrieved 1 December 2011.