The 18th Atlantic Film Festival kicked off Sept. 18 with 200 films, increased venues, and new streamlined gala screenings.

This year’s fest received a record number of submission, over 330, from around the world, and event organizers are expecting over 500 filmmakers, delegates and sponsors to touch down in Halifax for the festivities. The number marks a 35% increase in attendance over last year’s event.

A gala screening of Newfoundland-produced Extraordinary Visitor from writer/director John Doyle marked the opening of the nine-day festival followed by a party at the Lord Nelson Hotel Ballroom.

In an effort to introduce consistency and continuity this time around, executive director Gordon Whittaker says they will be paying special attention to gala screenings this year. A reception will follow each gala and the films are being scheduled to the exclusion of other films to attract attendance.

Industry sessions will take place over four days, starting early in the morning on Wednesday, Sept. 23 (as opposed to last year when it stretched the entire length of the festival). Rhombus Media producer Niv Fichman will star in the opening breakfast. Rhombus’ The Red Violin and Last Night will both screen at the aff.

Workshops this year have more of a creative slant than in the past. Instead of focusing on how to do the deal, they’ll concentrate on the director’s vision, the director/producer relationship and story generation.

Speakers include Maritime director Thom Fitzgerald (The Hanging Garden); Barbara Samuels, executive producer of cbc’s Black Harbour; George Elliott Clarks, an African-Canadian screenwriter who penned the Clement Virgo-directed feature One Heart Broken Into Song; and Extraordinary Visitor’s Doyle.

Wrapping the industry series will be a Provincial Muscle Bar where people can meet and greet reps from the different Atlantic funding agencies and share views on the successes and failures of the past year.

Following the popularity of its animation offerings in the past, the aff decided it was time to give the genre a program stream of its own and came up with a collection of animation for children and one for adults.

Strategic Partners, Canada’s first international coproduction conference featuring filmmakers from Canada and Germany, was oversubscribed. The program originally called for a 60-participant maximum to keep proceedings intimate and allow producers the opportunity to get to know potential partners. In the end, the program closed the doors with 66 on board about 35% German and 65% Canadian.

Another special presentation making its debut this year is the Anniversary Gala, which gives the festival an opportunity to celebrate its anniversary. According to Whittaker, each year organizers will pluck a movie from a program stream they want to highlight, and, he adds, ‘it’s an excuse for a party.’

The film chosen this year is Gods and Monsters, a biographical film about the last few weeks in the life of Frankenstein director James Whale in Hollywood in the mid ’50s. It stars Ian McKellen, Brenden Fraser, Lynn Redgrave and Lolita Davidovitch. Bill Condon directed.

Instead of giving out awards at the closing party, aff is introducing an awards luncheon where 21 filmmakers will take home a newly designed statuette.

‘Having awards at the final closing party didn’t work. Award winners weren’t given their just do because there was too much going on,’ says Whittaker.

With the festival falling on the heels of the Toronto International Film Festival, Whittaker found it difficult to nail down premieres as many of the films at the aff had their debuts at tiff, but most will be Atlantic premieres.