The Atlantic Film Festival usually doesn’t need much of an excuse for a party, so the mind races to think what might happen as the AFF celebrates its silver anniversary, Sept. 15-24.

Headed by executive director Gregor Ash and festival director Lia Rinaldo, the AFF plans to hit its quarter century with style. This year’s fest boasts 220 films, a wealth of industry events in its NSFDC Inspired Series program, and the popular international coproduction conference, Strategic Partners, now in its eighth year.

‘The schedule, on the whole, is probably the densest, largest program we’ve ever had, with the highest number of features,’ says Rinaldo.

The AFF will open with Halifax director Thom Fitzgerald’s latest, 3 Needles, which made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9. The film, starring Lucy Liu, Olympia Dukakis and Chloë Sevigny, interweaves three storylines in China, Canada and South Africa, and looks at how the characters in each are affected by a worldwide epidemic. Rinaldo says having a Fitzgerald work open the fest would be appropriate any year, but 3 Needles is special film for a special AFF.

‘It feels like a truly international film with an Atlantic touch,’ says Rinaldo. ‘It marks something really great for the film community here and for us.’

She adds that when she first heard Fitzgerald had undertaken the project three years ago, she knew it would open the AFF. ‘It was just a matter of what year,’ she says.

Fitzgerald says he feels lucky to have 3 Needles, his first feature drama shot on 35mm, launching the fest’s silver anniversary. Two of his previous features – The Hanging Garden (1997) and The Event (2003) – were also AFF starters.

‘It’s a wonderful feeling to know that the work has this festival to reach the home audience,’ says Fitzgerald. ‘I don’t take it for granted at all.’

The AFF was born from the sweat of East Coast filmmakers in 1981, and this year’s lineup is littered with Atlanticon, to the tune of 15 features and more than 50 short films. The features include Whole New Thing – screening as the Atlantic gala – by Amnon Buchbinder; Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making, directed by Tim Southam as a CBC prequel miniseries; These Girls by John Hazlett; and documentaries Reading Alistair MacLeod and Silent Messengers by the prolific William MacGillvray, an AFF staple since the mid-1980s. Among the Atlantic short films being presented are Big Claus & Little Claus by James Ricker, Nightmare in Canada by Jennifer Adcock and Sweet Talk by Steven James May.

Non-Atlantic Canadian features on tap include Clement Virgo’s graphic sex drama Lie With Me, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Quebec hit C.R.A.Z.Y., Carl Bessai’s zombie flick Severed, Michael Mabbott’s mockumentary The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico and Sturla Gunnarsson’s epic Beowulf & Grendel. Gunnarsson and Beowulf producer Fridrik Thor Fridriksson will also be the focus of the annual academy luncheon, where they will discuss their epic fantasy and the process of getting it made.

Notable imports screening this year include Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride, Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto, Lars Von Trier’s Mandalay and Lasse Hallström’s An Unfinished Life, starring Robert Redford and Jennifer Lopez, which receives closing-gala honors. Hallström shot his feature The Shipping News in Nova Scotia in 2001.

A program of German films will tie in with Germany’s participation in this year’s Strategic Partners, including dramas Off Beat, Summer Storm (which will also be featured in the That’s So Gay series) and the Tour de France doc Hell on Wheels. AFF will also run a retrospective of nine films by Daniel Petrie, including The Bramble Bush (1960) and the TV movie Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969) among others. Petrie, born in Glace Bay, NS, died last year.

To get the message out about the fest’s 25th, the AFF implemented its biggest media campaign to date. It also moved its hub from the Lord Nelson Hotel to the Delta Halifax, where many of the key industry events will take place. It’s all part of the festival’s continuing evolution, says Ash, and it won’t end there.

‘We are looking for key partners who are interested in taking us to the next level and we’ve had a number step up,’ he says, noting Atlantic telecom company EastLink is now aboard as the fest’s official communications provider. He adds that AFF is looking to add another initiative to its slate, which already includes youth festival ViewFinders and alFresco filmFesto, its summertime, outdoor screening series.

Regional mandate

‘We’re soft-launching something called Festival-in-a-Van this year, which is a portable regional film festival,’ says Ash. It will work as a traveling festival, providing a series of outdoor screenings throughout the Atlantic provinces.

‘We take our regional mandate very seriously and it’s hard to fulfill that mandate when you’re locked into the geographic city of Halifax,’ he says.

Ash is glad the festival can move forward despite a conflict concerning overlapping dates with the first New Montreal FilmFest (Sept. 18-25). Many felt the pulling of funds by Telefilm Canada and SODEC away from the long-standing Montreal World Film Festival would be its death – and the NMFF would have more flexibility in choosing its dates – but WFF and its feisty honcho Serge Losique persevered, causing the traffic jam for the AFF and NMFF, both backed by Telefilm.

But with days to go, Ash says the controversy and muddy fest landscape in Montreal may prove a blessing for the AFF.

‘There is a lot of confusion because of the three festivals in Montreal now, and we got a lot of attention through the campaign to fix the situation,’ he says. ‘It reminded a lot of people that it’s our 25th anniversary.’

Ash believes the growth and longevity of the festival, which has weathered several storms in its first 25 years, has as much to do with its convivial environment and geography as its strong film and event programs, and he promises its continued evolution.

‘I think we’ve done a really good job at retaining the small-festival intimacy, but added a big festival focus,’ he says. ‘It’s still an atmosphere where you can come and get into [events], and you meet people and we have a good time. There has been a strengthened sense of that over the years.’

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