Mind-Boggling Statistics and Humiliating Disrespect Brought to You by Halifax-based AIFF
In 2022, 84 films made by Atlantic Canadian filmmakers were screened at the Atlantic International Film Festival.
In 2023, 30 films made by Atlantic Canadian filmmakers were screened at the Atlantic International Film Festival.
By slashing 54 screening slots that were historically held by Atlantic Canadian filmmakers, and setting its sights on busting out of the shadow of TIFF, it appears as though the Atlantic International Film Festival (celebrating its 45th year) is experiencing a mid-life crisis and massive nervous breakdown (coupled with delusional behaviour and identity crisis) that require urgent counselling.
Demanding intervention, in the hopes of saving AIFF from its own dangerously misguided hand, Atlantic Canadian filmmakers and audiences are boycotting the festival until AIFF admits it is in crisis and promises to seek therapy.
Filmmakers and audiences are also insisting that AIFF seek additional counselling for its newly-acquired phobia of Atlantic Canadian filmmakers.
In 2023, with Martha Cooley at the helm as AIFF Executive Director, Lisa Haller arrived from a ten-year stint at TIFF in Toronto to take on the job of Director of Programming (and, most recently, Acting Executive Director). That year, 54 slots that screened Atlantic Canadian films the previous year were eliminated by AIFF.
Haller’s Linkedin bio states: “Responsible for overseeing the artistic direction and film curation for the Atlantic International Film Festival…”
However, whether Haller, Cooley or the AIFF Board of Directors was the instigator of this decimation is unknown to ungorgeous.com, as we were not privy to this information for various reasons, most notably that the bulk of our emails to AIFF staff requesting information, statistics and annual reports were ignored, and/or our requests denied.
And messages to AIFF’s hired flaccid PR gun, AlphaPR, were not answered. If only all PR firms remained that silent, the world might be a less diabolical place. Suggested name change for the Toronto-based* firm: SilentPR- we work in mysterious ways.
(* Footnote: Toronto seems to be a recurring piece in the puzzle.)
More Cutting in 2024, and AIFF in the Globe & Mail and PNI Atlantic
In 2024, once again targeting Atlantic Canadian filmmakers, AIFF cut an additional three Atlantic Canadian films, dropping Atlantic Canadian films screened at AIFF to 27 (down from 84 screened in 2022).
During this near annihilation, USA/foreign films remained steady at 42 films in the years 2022, 2023, 2024.
In 2022, the number of USA/foreign films screened at AIFF made up the smallest of all categories. Once the shameless erosion of support for Atlantic Canadian and Canadian films began in 2023, USA/foreign films became the disturbingly largest category of films, by far, screened at the Atlantic International Film Festival in 2024. (See graph)
Obviously considered the more important films by AIFF, USA/foreign films now screen at nearly double the number of Atlantic Canadian or Canadian films.
At a time when the USA is currently exacting so much damage on Canada, AIFF seems oblivious to the danger at our border and set on heartily supporting USA/foreign films over Atlantic Canadian and Canadian films.
One would think that AIFF Executive Director (currently on parental leave), Martha Cooley, originally from Ontario, who has also been Executive Director of the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative for 10 years, would be looking out for the interests of Atlantic Canadian filmmakers.
In a 2022 article by PNI Atlantic’s Stephen Cooke, Cooley was quoted:“More local productions mean more films for the festival to celebrate. Coming from the independent filmmaking world, I understand the value of community and collaboration.” Seems not so.
The article went on, quoting then AIFF board chair, Christena McIsaac, “(the festival) and all of its programs will benefit from Martha’s vast experience and strong connection to the Atlantic Canadian film industry.”
Working with AFCOOP as its Executive Director, Cooley’s essential purpose was to promote Atlantic Canadian films. In contrast to this fact,
as Executive Director at AIFF, she sanctioned the mass slashing of Atlantic Canadian films from 84 to 27 between 2023-2024.
In a 2024 story by the Globe & Mail’s Barry Hertz, “Halifax’s Atlantic International Film Festival sharpens programming and size to stand out in shadow of TIFF,” the article stated: “AIFF is aiming to simply piggy back off Toronto’s timing,” by attracting attendees at TIFF to make the trek east to AIFF.
Referring to TIFF attendees, Haller was quoted as saying, “We can welcome teams from what might be a hectic week prior – come over and calm down, have a lobster roll or two and celebrate. We’re just a little hop, skip and a jump over.”
Haller has first hand familiarity with Halifax being a “little hop, skip and a jump over” from Toronto as she did just that herself.
The big question, of course remains: How to get out of the shadow of TIFF? The obvious answer: Become TIFF. Attract those slick Central Canadians and Hollywood hipsters to AIFF from Toronto by nearly obliterating those unsexy, regionally-boring Atlantic Canadian films and offering a more respected world view of cinema that might placate the famous TIFF attendees and compel them to honour Haligonians with their celebrated presence.
AIFF’s secret agenda revealed here exclusively on ungorgeous.com: To convince the 700,000 people who attend TIFF to attend AIFF instead.
In 2023, an AIFF press release stated: “Returning to its roots, the Atlantic International Film Festival (AIFF) is pleased to unveil a new logo and brand for the organization. The rebrand focuses on the legacy name of Atlantic International Film Festival, accompanied by the initials AIFF.”
AIFF. TIFF. One letter in the difference. The transformation to TIFF’s non-identical twin should be effortless.
The most obvious problem with AIFF touting that it was ‘Returning to its roots…’ is that AIFF did not. What it did instead was the exact opposite. It cut the number of films they screened the previous year (2022) from 177 to 118, the cuts being almost entirely to Atlantic Canadian films. Of the 59 film slots cut, 54 (92%) were occupied by Atlantic Canadian films.
According to these statistics, it seems that AIFF considers Atlantic Canadian filmmakers to be the most expendable of all filmmakers. They are the filmmakers who matter least.
54 films by Atlantic Canadian filmmakers that could have been given a bit of much-needed support by AIFF. The majority of these cuts were made to Atlantic Canadian shorts programming, a sizeable number of these shorts made by young up-and-coming filmmakers who most require the encouragement and support of AIFF.
Subsequently, AIFF is eating its own young.
Atlantic Canadian Filmmakers Fear AIFF
While the bulk of Atlantic Canadian filmmakers who wrote to ungorgeous.com vied for anonymity, Newfoundland filmmaker, Andrea Cass, bravely decided to drop the mask, and express what other filmmakers have expressed in private: “Filmmakers are afraid to speak our against AIFF.”
One perplexed Haligonian filmmaker, who requested anonymity for fear of AIFF hitting the delete button on their submissions, wrote, “How are you supposed to understand what they’re trying to do by getting rid of our films. Don’t they know they’re an Atlantic Canadian film festival. That’s what they are.”
A prominent, yet unknown, filmmaker from Prince Edward Island, who also requested anonymity for fear of being targeted by AIFF, wrote, “That’s mind-blowing! They cut 71 films since the new people took over. It used to be a big festival, but now it’s small. How does that help with trying to become like TIFF? That’s funny. Don’t they understand math?”
An individual in the New Brunswick film industry, who also requested complete anonymity, wrote: “New Brunswick filmmakers have given up on it (AIFF) and don't even bother applying anymore because they view it as the Halifax Film Festival. We have a different issue with the festival than the reduction in Atlantic Canadian films shown. Even when they showed more films, the rejection rate of New Brunswick films was ridiculous.”
Yet another Newfoundland filmmaker, Stephen Cadigan, impervious to fear of rejection in favour of exemplifying bravery and a burning desire to speak the ugly truth, wrote: “I consider this to be a Nova Scotia film festival that pretends it cares about all of Atlantic Canada to make it seem more important. Look at the percentage of Nova Scotia films they pick compared to other provinces. It certainly limits the number of Newfoundland films. If you get picked by them, will it change your career? No.”
A young filmmaker from Nova Scotia, writing under the moniker, Rejected by AIFF, wrote: “Why have they done this to us? I attended every year and they’re cutting our films now. I used to love going there with my friends to see all our films. I’m not going anymore and I definitely won’t be submitting my films there anymore. It’s really sad.”
Another Atlantic Canadian filmmaker, whose films had screened at numerous AIFF film festivals, prior to the new team taking over, had their films rejected for three years in a row since 2023.
The filmmaker, who requested anonymity for reasons soon to be gleaned, summed it up with the phrase (much heard lately from Atlantic Canadian filmmakers), “Fu*k the new AIFF.”
AIFF Plans For the Future
Vying for exclusivity and prestige over actually giving a regional good gosh darn about Atlantic Canadian filmmakers, AIFF has devised innovative new strategies to become TIFF’s non-identical twin.
In an attempt to distract from the disgracefully shaming fact that they are an Atlantic Canadian film festival (with approximately 15,000 annual visitors), and vie to attract another 700,000 people from the really really really big TIFF, the AIFF team has proposed several plans of action:.
1. Create a direct subway line from York station in downtown Toronto to Dartmouth, across the bridge from Halifax where real estate values would be cheaper, and then bus the 700,000 people across Macdonald bridge in rush hour traffic.
2. Construct a larger airport that might handle the extra 2,000 flights carrying the newly-recruited ex-TIFF attendees to Halifax, assuming that the planes are all Airbus 350-900s (usually earmarked for trips overseas) that can carry 350 passengers at a time.
And, of course, the most brash suggestion of all, proposed by one extremely home sick member of the AIFF team, a suggestion that has many Haligonians and other Nova Scotians up in arms:
3. Shift Halifax to Toronto.
After scheduling a meeting with renowned Irish geologist, Top O’Graphy, the idea was briskly struck down with O’Graphy exclaiming to the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed AIFF team: “Have ye had a few too many nips? You’re lookin’ a bit flushed. It’s ferocious rough out here altogether. There’s no movin’ her.”
The announcement from the geologist was a mouthful and went on far too long, with members of the AFF board and festival team finding their attention slipping out of focus with numbing disinterest, distracted by imagines of higher audience numbers, more glitz and names that are, at the very least, vaguely recognizable in the film industry.
With AIFF’s founder, Newfoundlander Mike Riggio’s mandate (to promote films from Atlantic Canada) a distant memory, AIFF’s current snubbing team wanted to convince the gullible hicks that a new carnival had come to town, and that the backwoods AIFF might aspire to be something bigger, better, brighter, even attracting stars that Halagonians would line up to just catch a glimpse of.
In doing so, AIFF might shift the focus from its actual mandate of supporting independent Atlantic Canadian filmmakers to moving the spotlight where it rightfully belongs: to the vacuous stardom of Hollywood, a mentality that bolsters the reason why 98% of Canadian cinema screens are currently showing USA movies.
By betraying Atlantic Canadian filmmakers, AIFF’s current team has delivered a blow that has alienated its core followers, whacking them in the face with a resounding slap.
AIFF Funding Withdrawal Review
These funding agencies currently fund AIFF:
- Halifax Regional Municipality
- Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
- Nova Scotia Communities, Culture, Tourism & Heritage
- Telefilm Canada
- Canada Media Fund
- Canada Council for the Arts
Why these various departments of the Nova Scotia and Canadian governments continue to fund a film festival that has demonstrated such rancour for Atlantic Canadian filmmakers, many of whom live in Nova Scotia, not Toronto, is baffling. ungorgeous.com will be presenting this question to funding agencies for a follow-up story.
Happy 45th Birthday, AIFF.
Symptoms of midlife crisis, according to AI overview:
- Changes in behaviour, such as impulsive decisions.
- Withdrawal from relationships.
- Obsession with appearance.
- A sense of questioning one’s life direction and purpose.
As the AIFF is celebrating its 45th year and, obviously, suffering through a midlife crisis, ungorgeous.com makes the following suggestion: To remedy the situation, AIFF might consider purchasing a bright-yellow convertible sports car instead of destroying its 45-year relationship with Atlantic Canadian filmmakers by being heartlessly unfaithful.