Student attendance low at the Windsor International Film Festival

More than 45,000 people stood in line and attended the 2022 Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) breaking the previous record of 43,000 in 2019.

The festival ran from Oct. 27 to Nov. 6 and aired 311 screenings of 177 films and 24 shorts, while thousands attended, one demographic, students and persons under the age of 25, made up only 20 per cent of attendees at the festival.

Matthew Thomason, a St. Clair College student said that he would have been interested in attending the festival but wasn’t able due to because he didn’t know about it.

“I feel like there was probably advertisements for it but nothing that I had seen,” said Thomason. “If I had seen something I would have been interested in it.”

Elise Potma is a student at the University of Windsor who was able to attend the festival and saw one film for a class and a second for fun, but said she would have gone even if she didn’t have to for her assignment.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to widen one’s horizons of tastes in movies,” said Potma. “The movies screening at WIFF are often not available to watch anywhere else and cover a wide variety of interesting themes.”

While many students say they haven’t heard of the festival, Vincent Georgie, the executive director of WIFF, said they are doing the work to appeal to the demographic with an emphasis on growing the audience of film lovers.

“By programming films that appeal to younger audiences, providing unique experiences in our venues and ensuring a great atmosphere downtown, we are able to increase these numbers,” said Georgie.

With lower cost tickets and content geared towards the younger audience, the attempt at appealing to the demographic was felt but went unnoticed by many students.

According to Georgie, WIFF will continue in its attempts to draw in younger crowds to the event, and create more film lovers in the world to enjoy the many movies they present.