Fairfield Independent Film Festival

Imagine yourself a Lyon pedestrian in 1896, without noticing it you’ve been lured into a crowd trying to get that dank vaudeville joint you’ve only attended to get out of the rain for an hour. You give the moustachioed man, calling himself “Lumiere”, the last few francs in your pocket and shuffle in: you’ve got nowhere to be…no lover to get home to. Your seat is amongst the other curious travellers and the smell of cheap tobacco. Unlike any spectacle you’ve seen, the curtains have already been drawn and a large silver screen hangs from the ceiling. And suddenly the silver shimmers, a beam of light above your head shows you just how dusty it is in here, and clouds of tobacco smoke rise into the light like a summer morning, casting shadows on that perpetual sunrise, the sheet of silver.

“Nous commençons,” someone in the back announces and with the sounds of cranked gears the image of a train appears on screen, an entire locomotive inside this smelly theatre, you can almost reach out and grab it, and as long as those gears are cranked you can no longer feel the wooden seat beneath you, you can smell the linden trees wafting in as the train approaches you, and yes the train is headed right towards you, and you are no longer in this theatre so the train might roll over you, your heartbeat rises and you’re sweating, and it might actually hit you, and then night⸺the projector is off, you are standing in the dark, you don’t remember standing and that smell of cheap tobacco descends on you, and you’re neighbour has him arm on your shoulder, smiling at you saying “tour de passe-passe”. And you leave the theatre into a waiting crowd ready to forget their troubles for a few francs.

Many ages have passed since 1896 yet we remain enamoured by the cinema in the same way. The Fairfield Independent Film Festival (once formerly The Fairfield Productions Film Showcase) is an annual event hosted by Fairfield Productions in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Originally conceived as an event to display the films of peers who had worked with Fairfield Productions over the ended year, FIFF has broadened to filmmakers in Toronto and beyond. As active members of the Toronto film scene, Fairfield Productions considers this their opportunity to say thank you back to the community and the emerging artists who are still in the process of emerging.

Fairfield believes that the magic of cinema is new and exciting and can’t be reduced to a formula and that it belongs to the youth. FIFF is dedicated to this youth and cinematic forms that our cultural institutions have not yet recognized, so we accept films of every genre, medium, and all subject matter. Independent filmmakers own the future and FIFF is here to honour that.

Ultimately, FIFF is seeking that uniquely suspending cinematic moment where you believe the train may really be heading right towards you.