Local film lovers will have a year-round reason to keep their popcorn at the ready, while visitors to Stratford during the non-traditional months now have one more item to add to their must-see list – all thanks to the burgeoning Stratford Film Festival (SFF).
Launched last week with a presentation of a series of short films, the SFF’s executive director and general manager, Megan Smith-Harris and Bill Harris welcomed a small group of invited guests to introduce them to their idea of Stratford having a film festival with a twist.
“First off, I want people to have fun and be engaged, and I want to bring back public events,” Smith-Harris said. “A lot of people watch content on their phones or computers, and we’ve lost something because of that. I think this sense of community, of people coming together and laughing or cheering up or being shocked at the same thing in a collective experience is just so special and important.”
The twist comes here: SFF will host monthly screenings that showcase a curated film with a moderated discussion to follow, and then the festival will reconvene in November 2025 for a four-day event. Smith-Harris evoked Tom Patterson’s original film festival from 1956 in her remarks that was paused in 1961 before being revived in 1971 for a four-year run. Films are her passion and she wants to spread that joy but in meaningful ways.
“We’re doing this to engage the community and an audience where there might be an element of surprise there because you might be in the audience with someone who has experienced something one of the films deals with,” she said. “We look forward to putting together panel discussions as well as inviting guests who can speak and enrich the experience for the audience.”
The festival will take the next few months off as they ramp up for 2025, and Smith-Harris said she’ll be screening films that have applied for entry to the festival. But the other half of that equation is to create some buzz and build their audience out the right way.
“We want to build the engagement and the trust, and we want people to believe and understand that when they come to a Stratford Film Festival screening, it’s going to be worth their time,” she said. “They’re going to enjoy themselves but also learn something. They’re going to meet people and have a wonderful collective community experience.”
Smith-Harris talked about forming partnerships to help build the brand, and one of those is Destination Stratford. Zac Gribble, the executive director for the tourism body, said he was thrilled to welcome SFF into the fold of local attractions and thinks it’s going to add another element that will showcase the city well.
“I’m thrilled with all of the cultural activations and how the city is expressing itself culturally, particularly in the non-summer months,” he said. “So when an entity like Stratford Film Festival presents itself, we’re really keen on supporting and amplifying that because we know Stratford is a very creative community and having programming throughout the year at the high calibre we witnessed at the screening really dovetails into what we see as a cultural destination and a cultural community running on all pistons.”
Gribble added that the addition of SFF to the other similar cultural programming – particularly the Stratford Festival Theatre – will work to create dynamic synergies that can benefit everyone.
“This works with the strengths of the city and it’s creative population, and the appetite for our community and for visitors for this type of engaging art form,” he said. “This really fits well with our programming in the winter months, and it aligns very well with the Lights On Stratford program, so there’s a lot of opportunity for us to collectively program on a theme and mesh things together.”
Smith-Harris is looking forward to keeping the buzz going and can’t wait for things to kick into high gear next year.
“I hope people get excited, and I hope they say we love this,” she said. “I want them saying, 'We want to come to films, we’ll come back', and tell their friends to come and enjoy this experience with us.”
