Montreal’s film festival woes continue to send ripples of trouble right across the country, first in Halifax and, more recently, at home, where Claude Chamberlan, director and founder of the Festival du nouveau cinéma Montréal, up and left after more than 30 years with the festival.

Chamberlan’s departure, resulting from a conflict with the festival’s new general director André Lamy, has baffled observers and sent another tremor through the city’s already shaky festival scene.

‘[Chamberlan] is a good friend of mine and we had personal disagreements about the way the festival is managed, among other things,’ says Lamy, explaining that while Chamberlan’s departure appeared hasty, it is something the two have been discussing for months.

Lamy also says that in future years Chamberlan will still have a role in the festival as one of four programmers who will report to Lamy as an equal group.

Chamberlan was front and center in a battle earlier this year to get the new Montreal International Film Festival to change dates after MIFF announced its schedule was to coincide with FNC.

MIFF has been at the center of controversy since its inception last year and faces two lawsuits from Serge Losique and his longstanding World Film Festival.

In the end, MIFF did change its dates, from October to Sept. 18-25, which created an entirely new conflict with the Atlantic Film Festival, running Sept. 15-24.

While MIFF did not concede to another date change after AFF and MIFF organizers met with Telefilm Canada in Montreal on April 19, AFF executive director Gregor Ash says the meeting did raise important issues and resolved some practical considerations.

AFF and MIFF agreed to work together to ensure that the Montreal fest does not impinge on AFF’s access to prints, media or special guests. And, although MIFF has always said it would end up a summer festival, it vowed not to run concurrently with the AFF in the future. Telefilm will also work to ensure better communication among Canadian film festivals. In addition, Ash says there was talk of forming a Canadian association of film festivals to avoid such conflicts in the future.

‘It is just too easy for the AFF to get overlooked,’ says Ash. ‘This was too important a year for us to be conciliatory Atlantic Canadians and simply agree to find a way to make this work.’

The AFF turns 25 this year and organizers have been planning for more than a year. The anniversary fest is to play a key role in AFF’s attempts to transform itself and become a major boutique festival.

‘It would have been nice if this hadn’t happened,’ says Ash. ‘It’s easy enough to pick up an issue of Playback and turn to the events listings in the back and check dates. To not have done that tells me everyone is focused on Montreal.’ MIFF organizers changed their dates without consulting the AFF and contacted Ash only hours before publicly announcing the new dates.