Event Details

Founded in 1997, and incorporated in 2006, the Barrie Film Festival (BFF) has grown into a multifaceted ten-day event showcasing award-winning independent feature films from all over the globe with a significant emphasis on Canadian content as well as the screening of short films and a short film competition. The number of offsite additions has expanded over the years to include galas, educational workshops and guest Q&As. the BFF also programs films year-round, including the “Screen One” monthly film series, the “3rd Thursday program”, the “Reel Stories winter mini-festival”, and several free outdoor screenings on Barrie’s waterfront in the summer.

This application is for a collaborative festival, the first of its kind, produced by the Barrie Film Festival (the applicant), Simcoe Contemporary Dancers, and Talk is Free Theatre.

This funding is for the marketing of “WOW – a Festival of Global Experiential Art”, multi-disciplinary programming that will include six projects, each running roughly two and a half weeks, between March 18 and May 31, 2020 in Barrie and Toronto. Each immersive work, or “experience,” will be participatory, as the audience will be incorporated into the production. The six productions are:

(1) “Museum of Fiction. I Empire” (April 20 to May 17, 2020 at the Barrie Jail): an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Matias Umpierrez, Robert Lepage’s protégé. The multidisciplinary recorded work features Lepage in recorded segments and will be making its Canadian premiere at WOW;

(2) “In The Time Before The Immediate Present and The Time Immediately To Follow” (April 30 to May 17, 2020 at the Knox Schoolhouse): an improvised composition by the Simcoe Contemporary Dancers that will involve sensors that trigger changes in the music. The audience will be invited to wear the sensors and their proximity to the dancers will result in a new, improvised composition to which the dancers will perform;

(3) “Archive of the Missing Things” (April 9 to 26, 2019 at the Barrie Public Library): “an ambient drama and a tour through the ruins and forgotten corners of civilization” by Zuppa Theatre Co (Halifax). The audience, equipped with iPads, headsets and notebooks, will attempt to decode an online mystery;

(4) “Voices from the Suitcase - The Diaspora Project” (April 20 to May 10, 2020 in various locations in Toronto and Barrie): an interactive production curated by Anahita Dehbonehie that gives voices to immigrants from different parts of the world;

(5) “The Curious Voyage” (March 18 to April 5, 2020 in various locations in Toronto and Barrie): a two-day version of The Curious Voyage (the last OCAF-supported production by Talk is Free in 2018). Scenes will be held in real-life, non-traditional venues such as hotel rooms in Barrie, restaurants, TTC and a number of secret locations; and

(6) “Tales of an Urban Indian” (April 10 to May 17, 2020 in various locations in Toronto and Barrie): staged on a moving city bus, the play tells the story of Simon Douglas, a contemporary Indigenous man, who grows up on both the reserve and in Vancouver. LIke “The Curious Voyage”, the production includes a travelling component between Barrie and Toronto and performance times will be staggered to encourage tourists to stay in a community longer while not having to secure their own transportation.