Media City Film Festival: One of Windsor–Detroit’s Best-Kept Secrets

Media City Film Festival (MCFF) celebrates its 25th anniversary with more than 70 films from over 30 countries, free to watch on the festival’s website from February 8 to March 1, 2022: mediacityfilmfestival.com 

MCFF is an international festival of film and digital art presented in Windsor-Detroit since 1994. Outside of pandemic time, the festival takes place at different venues on both sides of the US-Canadian border, and features screenings, live performances, exhibitions, and panel discussions with international filmmakers. Over the years, Media City Film Festival has gained worldwide recognition, becoming one of only two non-American organizations supported by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

“Media City Film Festival is one of Windsor’s best-kept secrets. Ironically, it is also thoroughly celebrated and well-known internationally,” said MCFF Artistic Director, Oona Mosna. 

If you love watching movies, MCFF is an exciting opportunity to discover new work by film directors from Windsor-Detroit, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Armenia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, and around the world from the comfort of your own home. All of the films are currently streaming on the festival’s website free of charge. 

Despite pandemic challenges and COVID-19 guidelines, MCFF’s 25th-anniversary is their first edition that is entirely virtual. 

“MCFF’s designers, developers, and our streaming team have done an incredible job of creating a truly amazing and unique online experience that you’re not going to see anywhere else,” said Mosna. “The festival hopes to find ways to continue to provide this type of viewing experience in the future. It turns out that virtual is another avenue through which to build communities for artists’ cinema, especially when done properly with care for the artists, their work, and with consideration for local and global audiences.” 

According to Mosna, the reality is that film festival presentation will be radically altered by the pandemic, but not necessarily for the worse. “Many people have barriers to attending in-person presentations, whether those barriers are physical, financial, or otherwise. There are a variety of considerations that people take for granted. MCFF is learning how to expand care and access to world-class moving image art across different spaces. Hybridity is one way to approach this.” 

It doesn’t matter where you are or what time it is visit Media City Film Festival’s website right now. There you can enjoy incredible new works, world premieres, restorations, amateur films, and historical masterpieces from legendary artists, including Tracey Moffatt, Sergei Parajanov, Sky Hopinka, Ulysses Jenkins, Cecilia Vicuña, Carolee Schneemann, Tony Cokes, Ute Aurand, Karpo Godina, and dozens more, just as if you were attending a major online film industry event. 

The team behind MCFF encourages students, faculty, and staff to visit its website regularly and connect with the organization on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as they prepare for an in-person festival before the end of 2022. 

Nothing can replace watching a movie in the cinema with an audience. In a theatre you engage in a collective experience that you can’t have on your phone or computer – but for this occasion, we will let it pass since Media City Film Festival’s selection of films is so exciting. 

“The festival is really unlike anything in the world, but you’ll have to visit and check it out for yourselves,” said Mosna.