Southern Ontario ski destination Blue Mountain Village is launching a film festival that will include an industry component and have veteran film executive Helen du Toit as executive and artistic director.

The Blue Mountain Film Festival (BMFF), sponsored by Blue Mountain Resort, will run June 1 to 5, 2022 at the resort and conference centre just northwest of Collingwood, Ont. Owned by the Blue Mountain Village Association, the event has also tapped Daniel Bekerman, founder and president of Scythia Films, to head up its advisory committee.

Du Toit (pictured) was artistic director of California’s Palm Springs Film Festival for more than a decade, produced the Toronto International Film Festival’s Talent Lab for five years and was creative director of Vancouver IFF’s Film & TV Forum for three years.

“I feel like producers need to connect with the medium more, really develop their passion for cinema, and part of that is being exposed to great international cinema, which will be on the festival side,” du Toit, who’s also worked as an independent producer and helped launch the film program at CBC, tells Playback Daily.

Inspired and curated by du Toit, BMFF plans to program up to 25 feature films from across the globe, with a spotlight on Ontario productions. Canadian projects will be “very much forefront” in the initial years, she says.

“Canada will loom large in this program,” says du Toit, a member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Her producing credits include Mark Cousins’ 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey.

To complement the film fest, BMFF will also host a Creative Forum, which runs from June 1 to 3 and will include workshops focused on developing creative craft and emerging- and mid-level talent.

“On the Forum, I think what we want to do is really deep dive into craft and about how to put together an amazing team of creators,” she says.

While there won’t be an official market, the Forum will include a lot of networking opportunities for attendees, says du Toit, noting she wants the festival to foster deeper relationships through an intimate conference setting and a think-tank/immersion-type program.

“We want it to be very much focused on creative but absolutely not in any way diminishing the business opportunities. That’s foundational,” she says. “The idea is for this to be a major international co-production hub. We’d really like to make this a hot pot of international co-productions over time, and also really great quality productions. That’s central to us.”

Photo credit: Karen Lee Hall