The first Northwest Film Fest was held over four days 20 years ago in the former Paramount Theatre.
“I think we had a handful of films, something like seven or eight,” said Marty Mascarin, president of the North of Superior Film Association.
“We had something like 2,300 patrons. Over the years depending on the venue, the festival has really grown. We’ve come a long way – hundreds of titles and hundreds of man hours that have gone into making the festival a success.”
The lineup for the 20th annual Northwest Film Fest was announced Wednesday at Silver City theatre.
The Oscar-winning film Amour and other Oscar contenders like Rebelle and The Impossible starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor are on the schedule.
Mascarin said the 17 films on tap for the festival have amassed more than 130 awards.
“There’s a really interesting mix,” he said. “It’s not necessarily esoteric foreign language films. We have some titles that may appear mainstream that simply didn’t make it to the big screen here.”
Some of those include Hitchcock starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren and Scarlett Johansson and Hyde Park on Hudson starring Bill Murray and Laura Linney.
The festival includes films from Austria, Chile, New Zealand, France, Spain, the UK, the U.S. and Canada.
It also includes documentaries like Chasing Ice and the Academy Award winning Searching for Sugar Man.
The festival is once again showing on two screens over two Sundays – April 7 and 14.
To celebrate the milestone anniversary, NOSFA is hosting a gala reception on April 4 at Bight on the Waterfront after a screening of Searching for Sugar Man.
Film festival coordinator Catherine Powell said they wanted to have a party to celebrate their success and do something nice for their patrons.
“With theatres sort of diminishing in the Thunder Bay area, we had to move from here to here to here and with SilverCity being the only theatre left, it was in doubt,” she said.
“We had to do some negotiating, but Cineplex has been very good to us and they have a super staff here. The patrons really like the comfortable seats and the screening facilities are wonderful.”
A complete list of the films and festival schedule along with ticket information is available at www.nosfa.ca.
