The Broken Film Festival is Guelph’s first ever experimental film festival, founded by Nicole Marchesseau, Em Wright and Gabz Gillespie. On April 25th and 26th, the festival’s inaugural showcase will feature three programmes that search for a cinematic otherwise. This year’s selection ranges from abrasive video art, pastoral stories of the surreal, to boundary-pushing films exploring radical political themes. The first night features a series of (mostly) silent films at Silence with live improvised music from a quartet of musicians from Guelph and Hamilton. The second day will take place at ArtBar and include a panel conversation between the second and third lineups of films.The festival is committed to providing more accessible, safer spaces to experience adventurous works of film art. The team behind BFF can’t wait to share what they’ve been working on since last summer!
As everything beautiful begins, the story of the Broken Film Festival started on a road trip. Two artists and friends, Nicole Marchesseau and Em Wright, were traveling to see legendary outsider musician Jandek perform in a cave, when discussions turned to cinema. Nicole and Em had met at Audiopollination Guelph and had bonded over their shared passion for improvisational music and transgressive performance. Having both lived in Toronto previously, they lamented the lack of a developed film culture in their current city. Filled with inspiration from the dissonant sparks of Jandek’s guitar, they decided to do something about it.
When they returned home, Nicole’s life-long bestie, the artist and educator Gabz Gillespie, joined the team, and work on planning a festival began immediately. All three of the directors had little-to-no previous experience in film festival organizing, but had resumes that included Nicole’s filmmaking, soundtrack work, and some semiotic thinking around the two, Gabz’ earlier career in the film and television industry, and Em’s DIY music and arts organizing including the new media showcase ponyHAUS. They were confident that they could pull off a festival, and had no idea what they would be in for.
If you know the directors, you know the festival could only ever be a place for outsider, DIY and experimental films. Of almost equal importance was a desire to exhibit films with transgressive and forward-thinking ideas, questioning institutions and societal norms. The first incarnation was the “Unfinished Film Festival,” and an openness to incomplete films was kept in the final form. Emerging from their shared curatorial desire to exhibit films that break free from the conventions that are usually seen on cinema screens, the title became ”Broken Film Festival”. Since last fall, the festival has been in development, and soon Em, Nicole and Gabz realized why people don’t often decide to build a festival from scratch out of nowhere. Lessons were learned, heated debates ensued, and late nights were spent making sure every piece of the fest was perfectly imperfect. But amongst it all, not a single regret was had. The trio of directors knew this was a ride worth taking.
The co-directors knew that as white settlers, they couldn’t in good faith curate this festival alone, and conducted an open call for co–curators that resulted in a diverse team of folks with a wide range of taste and experience. BFF also partnered with Deeply Rooted to help curate films from Palestine that could fit the festival’s experimental/outsider mandate. Nicole, Em and Gabz are so grateful for these and countless other partnerships that have made this film festival evolve from a cursory thought between friends to a real thing that you can actually attend and stuff.
Buy tickets to the Broken Film Festival from their website, and join us in witnessing the most creative, surprising and ground-breaking set of films this city has ever seen.
