Celebrated In: Canada
The Montreal World Film Festival (WFF) (French: le Festival des Films du Monde; alternative official name Montreal International Film Festival, not commonly used), founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF (although the Toronto International Film Festival is North America's only accredited non-competitive festival).
The public festival is held annually in late August in the city of Montreal in Quebec. Unlike the Toronto International Film Festival, which has a greater focus on Canadian and other North American films, the Montreal World Film Festival has a larger diversity of films from all over the world.
The goal of the Montreal World Film Festival (Montreal International Film Festival) is to:
Encourage cultural diversity and understanding between nations, to foster the cinema of all continents by stimulating the development of quality cinema, to promote filmmakers and innovative works, to discover and encourage new talents, and to promote meetings between cinema professionals from around the world.
The president of the Montreal World Film Festival (WFF) is Serge Losique; its vice-president is Danièle Cauchard. Losique's management has been controversial. The WFF lost the sponsorship of its previous government cultural funders, SODEC and Telefilm Canada as a result of disagreements with Losique in 2004.
Subsequently, these two funding agencies announced that they would support a new international film festival, called the New Montreal Film Fest (FIFM), to be managed by Spectra Entertainment and headed by Daniel Langlois (of Soft Image and Ex-Centris and the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma).
After the inaugural edition of that new festival was unsuccessful, it was abandoned early in 2006. As of July 2007, Losique's lawsuits against the funding agencies were dropped, paving the way for a restoration of government funding.
