The annual Moving Pictures Festival returns to Toronto for its ninth year, Oct. 17-22.

The festival that features dance on film and video kicks off with an evening of Bravo!fact shorts, many of them world premieres, including: Thomas Care’s Rhythm in Oil, Mark Adam and Allen Kaeja’s Zummel, David Ray’s Grey Matter, Julie Trimingham’s The Lulu Waltz and Taffi Rosen’s Smokin’ F-holes.

Among the activities planned for the five-day festival, programmed by Kathleen M. Smith and Marc Glassman, is Viva Italia: Spotlight on Italian Video Artists, a selection of works by emerging Italian film and video makers, to be held in the John Spotton Cinema.

The cinema will also host a panel, Preserving Dance in a Disposable World, on the preservation of dance on film and video. Panelists include Patrick Bensard, curator of Paris’ Cinematheque de la Dance and Kim Tomczak, executive director of V-Tape.

On the closing night, the festival wraps with the last-chance screenings of the most popular films presented earlier in the week.

An awards jury includes Bensard and filmmaker Patricia Rozema, among others, who will choose winners of the Cinedance Award for Best Direction of a New Canadian Dancefilm and the Paula Citron Award for Choreography for the Camera.

This year’s festival showcases 21 Canadian films in total, 19 shorts and two documentaries – Gil Gauvrieau’s Betty Oliphant – A Life in Dance and the National Film Board’s Tango in a Cold City by Alastair Brown. *