New film festival coming to Quinte

By Jennifer Bowman

A new venue will be open in Picton for cinema lovers this year.

The Picton Picturefest is putting a community spin on traditional film festivals. It will take place in Picton and Bloomfield and has been organized and produced almost entirely through volunteers.

The Picturefest was inspired by a filmfest in Scotland two years ago.

“It wasn’t about the industry, it wasn’t about anything else, it was just about community building,” said Peter Knegt, co-director of the Picturefest.

He wanted to bring that back to Canada, and Picton offered the kind of atmosphere he was looking for.

The Picturefest offers four days of films, workshops, and camping with film professionals and media artists from Toronto. The 13 films at Picturefest range from Canadian and international, documentary and fiction, short and full-length. All have a focus on community.

Camping will be available at Picton’s 70-acre outdoor art gallery Small Pond Arts for those who sign up.

There will also be a four-day immersive filmmaking workshop for youth ages 16 and up. Toronto-based filmmakers Stephan Dunn and Pat Mills will turn the young participants into a mini film crew. They will be able to screen their work during the closing night festivities.

Information on how to apply for the workshop is available at www.picturefest.ca All applications are due by July 1.

The inaugural event will be July 7-11, 2011.