Festival International de Films de Montréal (FIFM), also known in English as the New Montreal FilmFest was a

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theater, cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online. Films may be of recent ...

held in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

in 2005 to focus on

Francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

films. Originally intended as an annual event, the festival became mired in rivalry with two competing festivals—the

Montreal World Film Festival The Montreal World Film Festival (), commonly abbreviated MWFF in English or FFM in French, was an annual film festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 1977 to 2019.Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

—such that the New Montreal FilmFest was ultimately held only once. The founding of the FIFM resulted from a yearlong dispute between the funding agencies SODEC and

Telefilm Canada Telefilm Canada is a Canadian Crown corporation that supports Canada's audiovisual industry. Headquartered in Montreal, Telefilm Canada provides services to the Canadian audiovisual industry with four regional offices in Vancouver, British Colu ...

and the organizers of the

Montreal World Film Festival The Montreal World Film Festival (), commonly abbreviated MWFF in English or FFM in French, was an annual film festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 1977 to 2019. The New Montreal FilmFest, produced by Spectra Entertainment (owners of the Montreal Spectrum theater), was initially headed by

Daniel Langlois Daniel Langlois (6 April 1957 – 2023) was a Canadian businessman who was the president and founder of the Daniel Langlois Foundation, Ex-Centris, and Media Principia Inc. He was founder and inaugural president of Softimage Inc., which i ...

, founder of SoftImage and Ex-Centris. Langlois had previously directed the Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media—Festival de Nouveau Cinema et Nouveaux Media, which was renamed

Festival du Nouveau Cinéma The Festival du nouveau cinéma or FNC (English: ''Festival of New Cinema'') is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, featuring independent films from around the world. Over 160,000 people attend each year. One of ...

in 2004 (Montreal's independent film festival). The involvement of Langlois intended to counter prior criticisms of lack of professionalism in the FFM/WFF (run by Serge Losique) and to merge the FCMM (renamed the FNC in 2004) and the New Montreal FilmFest into one new festival. The FNC would not agree to such a merger, and scheduling conflicts between the New Montreal FilmFest and the FNC led to Langlois' early departure from FilmFest. The 2005 event was eventually directed by

Moritz de Hadeln Moritz de Hadeln (born 21 December 1940 in Exeter, Devon, England) is a Swiss documentary film director and photographer, who became a Film Festival director. He was the founder of Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel. He also head ...

, who had previously headed the

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

, the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

, the

Venice International Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

—and founded the

Visions du Réel Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

documentary film festival of Nyon, Switzerland. Moritz de Hadeln had also been a long-time rival of Serge Losique's. Alain Simard was president of the festival in 2005. "FilmFest officials decided to concentrate on Francophone films, avoiding the Hollywood focus of the Toronto International Film Festival and the world cinema of ergeLosique’s festival FM/WFF"."New Film Fest Folds,"
''

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

News'', Arts & Entertainment, February 11, 2006. But the 2005 inaugural New Montreal FilmFest raised early criticism and did not meet expectations."New Montreal Film Fest under Fire from Established Rivals,"
''

News'', Arts & Entertainment, March 1, 2005. The advance negative publicity and its timing and selection of films were criticized widely, resulting in poor ticket sales. In early 2006 the New Montreal FilmFest was terminated:

Telefilm revealed that FilmFest lost $850,000, spurring Losique to call for a public inquiry into the "resounding and humiliating failure" of the Montreal FilmFest.

References

See also