Canadian short films will step into the virtual spotlight tomorrow (Aug. 21) as the Future of Film Showcase revamps to digital on CBC Gem.

Now in its seventh year, the festival features short films by emerging Canadian creators between the ages of 18 to 40. This year’s lineup includes six short films, such as Carol Nguyen’s No Crying at the Dinner Table (pictured, bottom left) and Alicia Eisen’s Deady Freddy.

“Rather than just going in, screening their shorts and going home, we really try to develop the filmmaker; not only to celebrate their film, but also nurture them as a filmmaker and propel their career forward,” festival co-founder and artistic director Eric Bizzarri (pictured, right) told Playback Daily, noting that the festival offers the chance for emerging filmmakers to step into the spotlight, rather than be a little fish in the big pond of international film festivals.

The festival counts Deragh Campbell and Sophy Romvari among its past alumni, and has helped its past featured shorts land on bigger platforms, including Florence Azar’s Chesterfield, which was later acquired by CBC.

It was success stories just like Chesterfield that gave the Future of Film Showcase team the idea to pitch a virtual festival to CBC once it was clear the pandemic would make a physical event impossible, according to Bizzarri. After all, if CBC would go on to acquire one or more of the shorts in the long run, why not get on board from the start?

“The exhibition of film is radically changing now with all of these streaming services being offered,” says Bizzarri. “What better way to screen purely Canadian shorts than on a Canadian broadcaster’s platform and bring everyone from this demographic to CBC Gem?”

Needless to say, the pitch was a success, and now the festival is on track to bring in a wider audience than ever before, with Canadians able to access nationwide. It’s a distribution jump that is both “daunting” and “exhilarating,” according to Bizzarri, in terms of potential feedback and the wider conversations on the films that will be made possible with a bigger platform.

The Future of Film Showcase originated at York University in 2014, where Bizzarri and co-founder Shant Joshi, who now runs the production banner Fae Pictures, met as students. When Joshi was ready to post his short film on YouTube or Vimeo, Bizzarri pitched the concept of renting a physical venue and turning it into a 60-minute showcase with other short films.

In the years since, the festival has grown in scale thanks to its expanding audience and partnerships, attracting a similar demographic of its filmmakers – Canadians 18 to 40, eager to support independent Canadian filmmaking. Cineplex came on board as a partner in the festival’s third year, and by year six they had sold out an auditorium of more than 300 seats at Scotiabank Theatre. “They saw what we were doing, and they said, ‘this is the demographic that we want to be in our theatres. These are the filmmakers and the audience members that we really need more of,'” says Bizzarri.

Bizzarri is also keenly aware of the responsibility the festival has to spotlight a diverse range of films. A minimum of 50% of the shorts in their lineup are from BIPOC filmmakers, and the programmers attend festivals such as imagineNATIVE and the Reel Asian Film Festival to discover new talent. “The core of what we’re looking for is original and bold storytelling,” says Bizzarri. “That also comes with a lot of responsibility and research on our end to ensure that we are representing a diverse community.”

The festival will also sustain its industry programming, which was introduced last year. The CMPA is a partner this year for the panel, programmed by industry director Samah Ali and set to run on Sept. 2, with details to be announced at a later date.

And while the move to digital is a step away from its venue roots, Bizzarri sees the value in both streaming and theatrical distribution, as long as it keeps audiences engaging in Canadian independent film.

“Our festival is intended to be a platform to celebrate short films and to encourage people to see them in just as high of a regard [as features], because these are the next wave of filmmakers,” he says. “They are quite literally the future of film.”