Film Submissions for Rendezvous 2023 are now closed.
We are not accepting Performance submissions for 2023, thank you.
The Rendezvous with Madness Festival (RWM) is the first and largest arts and mental health festival and public discussion forum that returns to Toronto in October 10-20, 2023 (tentative dates, opening on World Mental Health Day) for its 31st edition and is currently seeking submissions for programming this fall hosted each year by Workman Arts in Toronto, Canada.
The festival presents local, national and international work exploring themes of mental health and/or addiction issues. Rendezvous is a multidisciplinary festival that includes visual/mixed media art, live performance in addition to its core emphasis on film and media arts, panel discussions and in-conversation events.
*NOTE* At this time we are planning for a hybrid festival that is both onsite and online. We will update this page should these plans change.
CALL FOR FILM/VIDEO SUBMISSIONS
Deadline for Submissions: Wednesday May 31, 2023
Application Submission Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_K32Wwt7REgBgAoloAn2SoXPim_JZd8XGOg93KMIv893CmQ/viewformhttps://forms.gle/7jRFmqVsi38Rm7W86
We are now accepting film/video submissions for consideration for screening in the Rendezvous With Madness Festival in a cinema context (whether on-site and/or online).
*NOTE* At this time we are planning for a hybrid festival that is both onsite and online. We will update this page should plans change. (on-site location pending)
We are currently accepting submissions of all genres, lengths/durations and forms that highlight, discuss or intersect with topics of mental health, addiction, recovery and wellness. We’re especially interested in works by creators with lived mental health and/or addictions experiences.
We screen films with connections to mental health / addictions / recovery / wellness. Your film’s relation to these topics may be direct in context or more abstract in form. We are open-minded. We aim to represent a variety of perspectives and stories. In the “additional notes” section at the end of this form be sure to tell us more about your film; such as what inspired you or expand on the larger topics that your film is about. The more info you give us about your film the better!
We encourage applications from and give priority to Workman Arts members, creators with lived mental health and/or addictions experiences, BIPOC filmmakers, 2SLGBTQIA+ creators and makers with divergent abilities.
Other important notes:
There is no fee to submit to our festival and screening fees (artist fees/film rentals) are paid for all works screened based on the length of the film.
Submissions can be received by preview link (this is preferred – you can use Vimeo, YouTube, Google drive, etc.) or via USB drive.
- No submission fees
- Artist fees / screening fees / film rentals paid for all projects presented
You may submit up to 2 films for consideration; we will review works in progress/rough cuts (please give us info on what is yet to come!). Please see the FAQ below.
You will hear from us about your submission — All results will be sent by email by September 15, 2022.
For all accessibility support inquiries and to view a full list of our festival’s accessibility practices and services, please click below:
CALL FOR EXHIBITION SUBMISSIONS
Deadline for Submissions: July 24, 2023 by 11:59 PM EST
Application Submission Form: https://form.jotform.com/231635416069255
We are now accepting submissions for consideration for the Exhibition within the Rendezvous With Madness Festival in a visual art exhibition context.
The exhibition will be taking place over the month of October 2023. This year, Workman Arts is excited to be working with guest curator Sarah-Tai Black to facillitate the mounting of a themed exhibition.
For this year’s exhibtion, we are soliciting artworks that center crip /disabled experience. Working forward from the knowledge offered in Mia Mingus’ text, Access Intimacy, we are looking for artists that make work about how crip/disabled people show up for each other and imagine liberated futures for one another, despite often having fluctuating access to the energy, spaces, and resources to do so.
Submissions can be received by uploads through the Application Submission Form. If this is a barrier, please contact Josh Vettivelu for submission alternatives.
Above: Image of guest curator Sarah-Tai Black and their dog Ben
About the Curator: Sarah-Tai Black (they/them) is an arts curator and critic born and (mostly) raised in Treaty 13 Territory/Toronto whose work aims to center Black, queer, trans, and crip futurities and freedom work. Their curatorial work has been staged at Cambridge Art Galleries (Cambridge, ON), Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina, SK), MOCA (Toronto ON), PAVED Arts (Saskatoon, SK), and A Space Gallery (Toronto, ON).
Other important notes:
- No submission fees and the artists do not pay Workman Arts any fees to participate in the festival
- Artists fees paid based on CARFAC group exhibition recommendations
- Please see our Frequently Asked Questions below for more information on how we select, our payment structure, artwork eligibility and more
To submit your work online, please click here.
Workman Arts is committed to creating opportunities for artists who identify as being from a marginalized group. We encourage applications from artists with different abilities, Indigenous and racialized people, 2SLGBTQ+ individuals as well as those living on ODSP or OW and/or who experience precarious housing.
If you need assistance with your application or experience barriers in applying, please contact Josh Vettivelu.
This exhibition seeks to ask the following questions and more:
- Why and how is access intimate?
- How can access intimacy tend to the isolation of disability? How does it pattern or reconfigure space, time, and relation?
- How does the experience of neurodivergence alongside disability shape access intimacy?
- How can we learn from each other, for each other? How do we share knowledge? How do we witness and care for one another in this exchange?
- How does what crip folks make possible for one other offer a model for larger structures of care?
- How can we make access intimacy a prerequisite for the creation of collective public spaces?
- What might a liberated and collective crip future look like? What is the relation between crip futures and imaginings of utopia?
- How might art-making function as, express, or witness crip-centered care work? Freedom work?
We are interested in works that:
- center an embodied crip experience
- engage with sensory feelings and memory work
- center accessible methods of knowledge sharing and communication
- refuse the regime of legibility to able-bodied and/or neurotypical audiences
- witness one another as they witness themselves
- Works that live in multiple intersections of identities.
- Work that asks us to consider the intimacy of access/access intimacy from a variety of positions
- act as witness to lived feelings and the specificities of intersecting experiences
You may submit two recent bodies of work (a body of work is a series of artworks that are thematically linked together), installations, multimedia works, or project for consideration. We will review works in progress (please give us as much information as possible on what is yet to come and any relevant support material). Please visit our FAQ for more info.
Eligibility:
This call for submissions is open to all artists working within the themes and experiences outlined above. There are no restrictions on citizenship status, career level, or regional location. Artists do not need to be affiliated with Workman Arts or CAMH to apply. There is no fee to submit to our festival.
Compensation:
Artists will receive an artist fee and a materials fee, both in line with CARFAC’s recommendations for group exhibitions.
Selection Process:
Submissions will be reviewed by our guest curator Sarah-Tai Black, as well as Workman Arts and RWM staff. Results will be announced by the end of July 2023.
Questions / Support:
Please visit our website for more info and our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) here. If you have any questions please email Visual Arts Manager Joshua Vettivelu at josh_vettivelu@workmanarts.com or telephone 416-583-4339, ext. 6
If you require accessibility supports to complete this application please email Raine Laurent-Eugéne raine_laurenteugene@workmanarts.com or telephone at 416-583-4339, ext. 9
RENDEZVOUS WITH MADNESS SUBMISSIONS FAQs
FILM/VIDEO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)
Q: Do you charge submission fees to submit?
A: No, we never charge submission fees.
Q: Do you pay screening fees / rental fees for films presented?
A: Yes, we always pay everyone a screening/rental fee. The amount is at or above the current IMAA Fee Schedule and is based on the duration of your film.
Q. Do you consider works in progress / rough cuts?
A: Yes, absolutely! Please give us as much information about what is yet to come with your submission application.
Q: Does the film have to have some connection to mental health, addiction, wellness, recovery?
A: Yes, but Rendezvous takes a very “wide angle” approach to the films we present and we try not to define what makes a “Rendezvous film” – how explicitly the content references topics of mental health, addiction, wellness and/or recovery is up to you (you’re the creator after all!). We do show all genres: Documentary, Fiction, Animation, Experimental, Hybrid and are open to all forms and lengths. Your film’s relation to these topics may be direct in context or more abstract in form. We are open-minded. We aim to represent a variety of perspectives, stories and approaches and suggest you look at the recent films we’ve presented HERE for a sense of the kinds of works we screen.
Q: You mention you accept “recent” films – what does that mean exactly?
A: At Rendezvous, we like to be as generous as we can; but generally we’ll consider films from the past 5 years. If your film is older than that tell us why you think we need to see it and show it now.
Q: Does my film need to have open captions or subtitles to be considered for Rendezvous?
A: We do require English subtitles for public exhibition. If your film is in another language kindly supply a preview with English subtitles. If this is not possible please contact us. We present ALL films with open captions (dialogue and sound effects) – if you have this available, we would be grateful – otherwise we will create a caption file and provide you with a copy at no charge. We provide open captioning to make our films accessible to deaf/hard of hearing audiences.
Q: Does the film have to be a Toronto/Canadian/North American/World premiere?
A: No, we prefer not to add these restrictions to filmmakers/distributors!
Q: Do you require the film to be geoblocked / region restricted?
A: No we do not, we prefer to have the films available worldwide to have a larger audience see your film and participate in panels/Q&A’s (discussions are always available worldwide!); but we will work with you on your distribution preference.
Q: If the film is accepted will you bring me to Toronto to join a Q&A or panel? Will there be an online discussion if the program is streaming online?
A: Our travel budget is limited; but we try and bring as many creators to Rendezvous as possible and appreciate offers to apply for travel funding (we can always provide a letter of invitation). Rendezvous prioritizes post-event discussions (panels/Q&A’s/interviews) and we hope that you will participate in these discussions to share your film with our engaged audiences. We look forward to working with you to create the best scenario to have you participate in the program and discussion!
Q: What sort of accessibility supports does Rendezvous offer?
A: Please click here for a list of Accessibility supports at the Rendezvous With Madness Festival. Please contact us if you have any suggestions or feedback as we’re trying to be as accessible as possible!
Q: How does Rendezvous select the films it presents?
A: We have a 5-person programming committee with extensive media arts experience as programmers and creators. In 2022 all committee members identified as having lived experience with mental health and/or addictions. The program committee decides as a group which films are selected and tries to balance the strength of the films’ form and content alongside important considerations including balancing representation of genders, cultures, abilities, geographies, cultures and ways of telling stories through the magic medium of film!
EXHIBITION FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)
Submissions will be reviewed by our guest curator Sarah-Tai Black, as well as Workman Arts and RWM staff. Results will be announced by the end of July 2023.
Q: Do you charge submission fees to submit?
A: No, we never charge submission fees.
Q: Do you pay artist fees?
A: Yes, we always pay an artist fee to artists participating in the exhibition. The amount is at or above the current CARFAC group exhibition recommendations.
Q: Do you consider works in progress?
A: Yes, absolutely! Please give us as much information about what is yet to come with your submission application and any relevant supporting documentation of previous work to help support the work in progress being proposed. Please identify any specific details that are integral to its installation as well.
Q: Does the artwork have to have some connection to mental health, addiction, wellness, recovery?
A: Yes, but Rendezvous takes a very broad approach to the artwork we present and we try not to define what makes a “Rendezvous Exhibition” – how explicitly the content references topics of mental health, addiction, wellness and/or recovery is up to you. We do exhibit all media: painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, textile, collage, installation, media-based art, digital art, performance art, video art, and are open to more. We suggest you look at previous Rendezvous exhibitions we’ve presented HERE for a sense of the kinds of artwork we exhibit.
Q: You mention you accept “recent” artwork – what does that mean exactly?
A: At Rendezvous, we like to be as generous as we can; but generally we’ll consider artwork created from the past five years unless it is an ongoing piece. If your artwork is older than that tell us why you think we need to show it now.
Q: I have a performance art piece. Do I apply to the Exhibition call or to the Live Performance call?
A: The live performance call is asking for site-specific pieces/projects that speak to the available venues listed in its call found below, it also applies to any performance pieces which can fall under the theatre umbrella. Any performance pieces that apply to a gallery setting or under the visual art umbrella should be submitted to the exhibition call.
Q: I have a video art piece. Do I apply to the Exhibition call or to the Film call?
A: The film call is for film or video art pieces intended to be screened in a cinema setting, whether in-person or online. For more info, visit the open call page for film above. Any video pieces that apply to a gallery setting or under the visual art umbrella should be submitted to the exhibition call.
Q: Do I have to be a Toronto/Canadian artist to participate?
A: No, we do not limit where the artist is based. In the past, we’ve exhibited artists from across Canada and the world, including the United States and France.
Q: If the artwork is accepted will you bring me to Toronto to join a Q&A or panel? Will there be an online discussion if the program is streaming online?
A: Our travel budget is limited; but we try and bring as many creators to Rendezvous as possible and appreciate offers to apply for travel funding (we can always provide a letter of invitation).
Rendezvous prioritizes post-event discussions (panels/Q&A’s/interviews) and we hope that you will participate in these discussions to share about your work and practice with our engaged audiences. We look forward to working with you to create the best scenario to have you participate in the program and discussion.
Q: What sort of accessibility supports does Rendezvous offer?
A: Please click here for a list of Accessibility supports at the Rendezvous With Madness Festival. Please contact us if you have any suggestions or feedback as we’re trying to be as accessible as possible!
Q: How does Rendezvous select the artwork it exhibits?
A: In the past, we’ve worked with curators and juries with extensive visual arts experience as programmers and creators within the larger art community. This year we plan to do the same. The artworks that are selected try to balance the strength of the artistic concepts, content, and messaging alongside important considerations including balancing representation of genders, cultures, abilities, geographies, and ways of telling stories through the art form used.
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