Skip to content

Film fest packs new home

The new home of the annual film festival offers a bigger parking lot but less time to see the all the movies available. The 17th annual film festival began with 13 of the 16 scheduled films on Sunday with patrons lining up around 10:30 a.m.
85083_634047821737669324
Movie patrons line up to go see a movie at the 17th annual North of Superior Film Association film festival on Sunday. (By Jeff Labine, tbnewswatch.com)
The new home of the annual film festival offers a bigger parking lot but less time to see the all the movies available.

The 17th annual film festival began with 13 of the 16 scheduled films on Sunday with patrons lining up around 10:30 a.m. North of Superior Film Association used four of the theatres at SilverCity, which could hold 997 people combined. The traditional weekend-long event changed to two days scheduled to conclude on Sunday, March 28.

John Michael Robinson has come to the film festival with his wife for 17 years. Robinson saw De Pére en Flic and said it was hysterical.

Robinson said he wished the film festival was longer as it is difficult to see everything he wants to see within two days.

"There are too many movies and not enough time," he said. "That’s my only complaint."

He said it is great that NOSFA is able to bring in movies that wouldn’t otherwise be offered in the city.

"There are lots of movies that you don’t get to see in Thunder Bay," Robinson said. "There are lots of movies that don’t make it here because there aren’t enough theatres, I guess. So NOSFA is the only chance we got to see this kind of stuff."

Marty Mascarin, president of North of Superior Film Association, said the four-day format didn’t fit with SilverCity’s configuration and the possibility of a festival seemed unlikely.

The film festival originally played at the Cumberland Cinema. However, the theatre was sold and NOSFA had to find a new venue. Mascarin said they tried Lakehead University and thought that would be the ideal place. However, the general manager at SilverCity said they wanted to make the festival work, he said.

"We did try for the four-day format but that didn’t work," Mascarin said. "They opted for plan B, which was the consecutive Sundays."

Mascarin said there are tremendous advantages to having the film festival at a larger venue. The theatres at SilverCity are state-of-the-art compared to the ones at the Cumberland theatre as well as more food vendors, a larger parking lot and an ATM machine, he said.




push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks