Will a film festival be coming to Trenton?

By Ashley Clark and Justin Medve

TRENTON – Founders of the Toronto International Film Festival were at Quinte West council Monday night to convince its members that a film festival is a good idea for the city.

Opening with a movie-trailer-style presentation set to the music of Star Wars, founder of TIFF Bill Marshall explained why he and his co-founder, Henk Van der Kolk, said yes to organizing a film festival here.

“You have a legitimate case for actually being the first place in the world where the government decided it would be good to be in the film business,” Marshall told the councillors.

In 1917, the first film studio in Canada was set up in Trenton. The Trenton Film Plant hosted international filmmakers and also became the home to the Canadian Motion Picture Bureau. But it closed in 1934 when the studio’s technology was no longer up-to-date with the industry.

Quinte West Coun. Duncan Armstrong initiated the current project-in-the-works.

“I’ve always thought, ever since I moved here, that (Trenton’s) film-industry history has never been really tapped properly. And I felt that because we’re trying to improve our economic development and push tourism, film festivals are one way of improving tourism. And since we are the birthplace of the Canadian film industry, why not here?”

Armstrong said he doesn’t know much about putting together film festivals, so to get things moving he decided to approach more experienced organizers.

“I thought if we’re going to do it right let’s get the best in the business,” he said.

And so he contacted Van der Kolk and Marshall.

Van der Kolk told council, “Quinte West I think had the foresight and the vision to hire us to help them do this, and I want to thank (the city) for this very much because the more deeply we got into this situation of assessing it … the more excited we got about it.”

Marshall and Van der Kolk are working to bring the film festival to the streets of Trenton in July 2017 to celebrate 100 years of film in Canada, as well as Canada’s 150 anniversary. “It’ll be a hell of a party,” Van der Kolk said.

Marshall and Van der Kolk asked council for $100,000 as start-up money for the project.

“What I would like to urge is that whatever decision you make, could you make it soon?” Van der Kolk asked.

He explained that the companies they will be approaching for funding make their decisions a year in advance, which means their time is limited.

Mayor Jim Harrison acknowledged the work the two men have done over the past 40 years with TIFF, the third-biggest film fest in the world.

“We recognize that we have two of the best individuals that we could have here to do what we’re putting forward,” Harrison said.

However, no concrete decision about the festival has been made. Council said it will announce its decision in two weeks.