The Ontario government has announced $185,000 in funding for the Windsor International Film Festival.
The funding is from the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport through the Reconnect Ontario grant and is designed to support promotion of the festival and cover costs involved with staging the event.
Vincent Georgie, Executive Director and Chief Programmer of WIFF, says this funding helps with outreach and support.
"Bringing the festival back and recharging that machine, it's been dusty for a couple of years. It takes a lot of resourcing and time to get it back to where it's at. To have it come forward in this way is huge," he says.
WIFF kicked off Thursday after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, featuring a line-up totalling 177 feature films and more than 300 screenings.
Georgie says they had almost 4,000 people here already for the opening day of the festival.
"These people are coming here, they're staying in hotels, they're eating and drinking. If you're going to see 5, 6, 7 films a day, you're eating and drinking down here. You're grabbing a hotel. We have guests from out-of-town that are going around finding Windsor pizza. It gets people going and that is a really important thing from a tourism perspective," he adds.
Windsor-Tecumseh Conservative MPP Andrew Dowie, who made the announcement on behalf of Minister Neil Lumsden, says Reconnect Ontario is designed to rebuild our tourism industry.
"So the $185,000 was based on an exceptional application from WIFF. I'm sure Minister Lumsden had no qualms with awarding it because he knew it was going to such a great opportunity for our community," he says.
The 2022 festival will run until Sunday, Nov. 6, WIFF's first-ever 11-day festival.
The film festival will be screening this year's line-up at three venues:
- The Capitol Theatre at 121 University Ave. W.
- The Chrysler Theatre at 201 Riverside Dr. W.
- The Armouries at 37 University Ave. E.
For tickets and more information, please visit www.windsorfilmfestival.com.
With files from AM800's Aaron Mahoney