Vox Popular Film Festival

Vox Popular Film Festival (formerly the Bay Street Film Festival) will celebrate its 21st annual festival September 2025 held at the Definitely Superior Art Gallery.

Vox Popular programs all genres of film - documentary, features, shorts, and experimental - made in Northwestern Ontario, Canada and internationally.

The annual festival and year-round programming connects professional and independent filmmakers with other artists and to audiences of all ages and interests by showing films, facilitating creative and professional development and multidisciplinary arts performance in an accessible, inclusive, friendly environment.

We have screened over 946 films and hosted over 178 visiting filmmakers from across Canada and around the world. Sparking countless discussions in our Q&As, Master Classes and hands-on workshops with media creators!

Vox Popular follows CARFAC and IMAA rates for professional Canadian artist’s fees.

Each year we try to provide up to 10 travel grants to help subsidize travel expenses of out-of-town filmmakers, allowing them the opportunity to come to Thunder Bay to present their film, participate in Q&A’s, lead master classes and most importantly, to interact and celebrate media arts of all genres.

Thunder Bay is located on Lake Superior between Toronto, Ontario, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, north-east of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it is serviced by a national airport. Be sure to check out www.thunderbay.ca for more information about the city and region we call home. Vox Popular acknowledges that our office and festival are on the traditional territory of the Anishnaabe People, and in the area of the Robinson Superior Treaty (1850).

Since 2020, we have presented films virtually in addition to our in person events. As we move to the post-COVID era, we continue to screen select films on ResearchTV.ca for 5 days following the in person event. This allows immune compromised people to experience the festival from their home and creates greater accessibility to the films. Filmmakers have no obligation to be a part of the online portion of the festival and we can geo block and/or cap off views if necessary. It is a wonderful way to reach larger audiences.

Our yearly programming:

Main Programming – Average of 25 films will be selected from our jury for presentation at our annual festival. All genres of film - documentary, features, shorts, and experimental made in Northwestern Ontario, Canada and internationally are accepted.

Pop-Up Programming –Artists, collectives, and organizations celebrating and bringing film to Thunder Bay.

Education Programming– Workshops and masterclasses for new generation filmmakers to gain experience in research, pre-production, production, post-production and presentation of film in a professional and fun environment.