Festival

Festival

Images is an annual festival dedicated to showcasing experimental and independent moving images in April.

As one of the longest running festivals of its kind in North America, it provides a crucial stage boundary pushing works of cinematic, performance and media-based forms. We are one of Toronto’s original interdisciplinary arts festival and continue to be a critical forum for independent media art in Canada and around the world.

Trailer Commission

Annually, a contemporary moving image artist is commissioned to make our trailer in response to the festival theme.

The trailer becomes a microcosm of the festival’s commitment to experimentation and boundary-pushing practices. By showcasing a filmmaker’s work, the trailer itself becomes an artwork.

Past Trailers

Curatorial Residency

The curatorial residency at Images Festival serves as a platform for fostering innovation and critical engagement in moving image culture.

The residency provides a dedicated time for curators to develop, experiment with and refine their practices in relation to experimental moving images in a festival environment. This includes opportunities to engage with new approaches to cinema-based programming, review submissions, engage in research and produce programs, conversations, workshops or screenings that challenge traditional frameworks. By supporting curators in producing critical programs, the residency contributes to the development of discourse about moving image culture and its role society. The Curator-in-Residence program invites curators annually to delve into moving image practices, bringing new audiences to the festival and strengthening networks that sustain and expand our publics.

The Images Festival Emerging Curator (IFEC)

This program invites an emerging curator into the festival programming team and funds a screening of student work*. It thus provides a platform for emerging curators and student filmmakers to gain experience, develop their skills and explore innovative curatorial approaches in a professional setting. This helps to build confidence and competence in those entering the field. This program serves as a crucial link between theoretical knowledge and real-world application, providing the emerging curator with an opportunity to work in a festival environment with peers, artists, developed audiences, enriching their understanding of curatorial work and the field of experimental moving images. 

*Submissions to the festival are free for student filmmakers.

Catalogue

The catalogue serves as a tangible embodiment of the festival’s curatorial vision and documents the work of the team as well as the participating artists and curators. It becomes part of the archival record for artists, researchers, institutions and future programming teams.

Past Catalogues

Accessibility Overview

Providing accessibility services are a priority at Images. Each festival will include detailed venue access information, including entrances, washrooms, and mobility features.

Services include: open captions, ASL interpretation, live transcription, creative audio description, ADA-compliant digital catalogues, content warnings, and active listeners. 

Tickets

See ticket information here.

Awards

Images celebrates the contemporary works by artists through a juried award process. 

AstroLab Studios Production Award 

Awarded to a filmmaker who showcases an exciting synthesis of curiosity, experimentation, and innovation. The recipient will receive a certificate valid for one day of production in Studio 1 of AstroLab Studios, valued at $3750. Sponsored by AstroLab Studios. 

Boundless Vision Award

Awarded to a festival project that is expansive and imaginative in vision, while creatively resourceful in its production and execution. This award was established in 2015 to honour. 

Main Film Award

For the Love of Celluloid Since 1982, Main Film, located in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), has been recognized by its peers as an artists' center that nurtures and uplifts the emergence of a vibrant and innovative generation of filmmakers especially within the analog practice and we are proud to be defenders of the analog practice in Canada. Main Film is excited to sponsor the "For the Love of Celluloid" award, to be presented at Images Festival. This award aims to celebrate and honour the exceptional dedication and passion for celluloid film within the independent cinema scene. The prize is $500 cash and is sponsored by Main Film. 

Radical Forms Award 

This honour goes to an artist whose work is impervious to constraints—willful, unruly, and uncontrollable. This award was established in 2000 to honour the former Executive Director Deirdre Logue. 

The Niagara Custom Lab Award 

The Niagara Custom Lab Award is presented to an artist who maintains a curiosity and commitment to exploring celluloid within their films. The recipient will receive $1200 in laboratory services for processing and scanning 16mm and Super 8 motion picture film. Sponsored by Niagara Custom Lab. 

York University Award for Student Work

Awarded to the best student work on screen. The prize is $500 cash, and is sponsored by York University’s Department of Cinema & Media Arts. 

Images Festival operates on land stolen from the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Tkáron:to is currently home to diverse Indigenous and Métis peoples as well as people who settle on this land. As part of Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, we acknowledge that we all eat from the same bowl and spoon, and must take only what we need, ensuring resources are available for all. 

As art workers, artists, and curators, we see the process of untangling ourselves from settler complicity as internal, structural, and ongoing. It is not something to be taken lightly. The inclusion of Indigenous artists and curators into our program is just the first step of necessary and deeper change. Extending from our organizational accountability work, we strive to not only undo forms of complicity, but also actively create an environment and infrastructure that can support Indigenous peoples who work with us. 

Images expresses our solidarity with Indigenous people on Turtle Island and globally. We are committed to continuing to learn, critique, and challenge the settler colonial structures we are complicit in.