A more present and powerful WIFF

Despite the loss of an extra venue, the Windsor International Film Festival entered full swing opening night on Nov. 7.

“This is opening night, and opening night is always pretty exciting,” said WIFF Executive Director Peter Coady.

More than 100 people attended the festival’s 8^th annual premiere at the Capitol Theatre Wednesday night. In order to accommodate for the loss of Palace Cinemas, the festival began a day earlier than it did during previous years. The night kicks off five days of locals watching films made from all over the world, all while placing local and national films in the spotlight. Over 40 Canadian and international films are to be screened throughout the festival, a higher amount than the previous year.

“These are films that are usually not going to be screened anywhere within city limits,” said Coady. “It’s part of our job: We go out there, we find films we think people can appreciate and want to see.”

Among this year’s lineup is Michael Haneke’s ‘Amour’, Austria’s submission for the 2013 Academy Awards which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; the top prize at the world’s most prestigious film festival.

“I think the film festival always has to be about the films, and we have a particularly strong line-up of films this year,” said Marketing Director Vincent Georgie.

The night’s opening film was the Canadian documentary ‘The World Before Her’, where 20 contestants enter a month long beauty boot camp in order to compete for the Miss India pageant. A Q&A session was held after the film by producer Cornelia Principe, a born Windsorite.

“We think it’s a really strong documentary, no question at all. It’s Canadian, and we always look to start with a Canadian film, and I think it’s really going to speak with the audience about where India is at and the cultural shift between the east and west and the conflict there…”, adds Georgie.

According to Georgie, some of the films he thinks many will flock towards include ‘The World Before Her’, ‘The Intouchables’, a French comedy-drama about an unlikely friendship between two people, and ‘Killer Joe’ which stars Matthew McConaughey. Films he thinks will garner a divisive reaction are ‘Compliance’, an unsettling drama inspired by true events and ‘Nuit #1’, due to its explicit content.

Tickets for adults are $12, while for students $6. Passes which last for the festival’s entirety go for $75 and $35 for adults and students respectively.

For more information, visit www.wiff12.com.