Hamilton Film Festival 2015

From the opening Gala to the closing Awards Ceremony, we will celebrate the local film industry and welcome national and international films and their cast and crew.

Internationally recognized and locally focused, the 10th Annual Hamilton Film Festival presents almost 200 independent films in a 7-Day, annual event during the first full week in November in the historic Staircase Cafe Theatre and the newly restored, 300 seat, The Zoetic. This year will also introduce the Hamilton Film Expo, a daytime event on Sat Nov 7th in the Spice Factory.

Our programming is diverse and on par with some of the world's best film festivals. Many filmmakers have cited the Hamilton Film Festival as part of their festival strategy in the Toronto area, Canada and North America and have since been the home to hundreds of premiers.

The 10th Annual Hamilton Film Festival offers selected filmmakers over $10,000 value in prizes, passes, trophies and as alumni, there is no shelf-life put on the films we screen as we actively keep our eye on opportunities for encore screenings, distribution connections and social media promotion.

When the festival began 15 years ago (even before it was renamed Hamilton Film Festival) , there were very few annual film screenings in Hamilton that offered the independent filmmaker access to screens and audiences. Today, there are several festivals and opportunities in Hamilton and surrounding areas. Many of those event organizers have acknowledged the Hamilton Film Festival as part of their inspiration and we have always wiling to participate and promote them. This year, we launched the Southern Ontario Film Festival Group , connecting filmmakers to submission-based festivals within an hour distance.

With all the film production activity coming into the city of Hamilton, the festival is contacted throughout the year as a resource for finding cast, crew and locations for independent productions. To better accommodate this we started the Lights Camera Hamilton group page on facebook where people can post and respond to job opportunities, cast calls and resources. Lights Camera Hamilton started as a segment on Cable 14's Hamilton Life with festival director Nathan Fleet bringing filmmakers on the air and updating the city on what was happening that week in the local film world.

A new event planning company Causing a Scene will be setting up several events during the week of the festival, creating a Film Week in Hamilton during the first week in November.

We are very honoured to be a small part of the large arts community in Hamilton Ontario.