ADVANCING FUTURES / PROMOUVOIR L’AVENIR REPORT
In October 2021, Rendezvous With Madness, with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts brought together Canadian independent film and media art festival organizers, exhibitors, content creators and technology experts to develop technology and organizational strategies to address the rapidly changing digital environment and ensure Canadian independent film/media art festivals are more fully accessible.
This three-day bilingual (French/English) gathering examined: Indigenous archival approaches and protocols; alternatives/solutions for the preservation and maintenance of film festival content; BIPOC responses and needs in a field that tends to be white dominant/focused; the development of technology and operational strategies to ensure that independent film and related festival content is widely available via distribution platforms; increasing accessibility to festival content through increasing shared knowledge and access to open captioning, described audio and screen reader technologies in addition to legal and technical strategies and concerns.
The report here (in English and français) by Jacquelyn Hébert summarizes the panels and discussions and, we hope, contributes to ongoing dialogues about these important issues.