Attendance at this year’s ViewFinders: International Film Festival For Youth rose to nearly 10,000 - a clear indication of the growing popularity of this little Festival.
'ViewFinders glowed golden this year, from the special guests who lit up the stage to the eye-popping quality of the youth-made film submissions for our Challenge competitions, to the record number of film fans who participated in the event,” said ViewFinders Director, Julie Glaser. “ViewFinders works hard to inspire our teachers, students and families, and it came back to us this year in spades.”
The event screened over 100 films made for, and by, young people, and facilitated more than 40 workshops offering hands-on skill building in film production, scoring, special effects, voiceover acting, gaming and more.
International awareness of the Festival is also growing outside the region as was shown this year by the increase in visiting directors and producers. US-based actor/director Clark Johnson whose recent work included acting in and directing Season 5 of the HBO TV series The Wire, led a ViewFinders Director’s Corner workshop for high-school students. And popular Montreal-based actor/writer/director Jacob Tierney offered a bilingual workshop during the ViewFinders French Day Program presented in conjunction with the province’s French For The Future Conference.
“Our guests tell us they are blown away by what ViewFinders offers kids, and by the passion these kids are bringing to the Festival” said Gregor Ash, Executive Director of the Atlantic Film Festival Association. “After only seven years this little Festival that could is proving it can hold its own amongst the biggest and the best of its kind.”