12th Annual AGH Film Festival

Art Gallery of Hamilton Celebrates 12th Annual

AGH Film Festival Exclusively Online
October 16 – 25, 2020

Click here to get your festival pass!

HAMILTON – The Art Gallery of Hamilton’s annual Film Festival is Hamilton’s largest festival
of international, independent, and Canadian film and will be screening exclusively online
from October 16 – 25, 2020. Over the last 12 years, we have welcomed over 70,000
attendees, screened 500 films, and worked with more than 120 community and corporate
partners to bring premium cinema to the region.

In 2020, the AGH Film Festival will offer significant adaptations in order to respond properly
to ongoing COVID-19 regulations. The biggest change this year will be the presentation of
our films and events online. This change also brings with it an increase in the amount of
free programming we can offer to our audiences, and will allow us to extend the reach of
our Festival to include all of Ontario. It promises to be a very unique and pivotal year!

“As the largest Film Festival in Hamilton and the region, we’re proud of the annual AGH Film Festival’s ability to expand its vision and scope each and every year,” says Shelley Falconer, AGH President & CEO. “Such a challenging year necessitates a wide range of important public discussions, many of which find their voices through the accessible visual medium of film. For making this possible, we would like to thank our presenting sponsor BMO Financial Group, Celebrate Ontario, and all of our generous sponsors and community partners.”

The Festival kicks off with its Full Program Announcement on Thursday, October 1 at 11:00 am at www.aghfilmfest.com. Film fans can finally get their first online look at all of the incredible titles we have in store for this year’s Festival. Head to the Art Gallery of Hamilton during our first-ever Thursday installation of “Free Friday” to see some of the film trailers in-person, projected on-screen in the Jean & Ross Fischer Gallery. Individual film tickets, 10 packs, and All Access Passes will be made available for sale online only.

“Delivering our Festival online brings us a new set of challenges and opportunities this year,” says Ryan Ferguson, AGH Film Festival Curator. “While we strive each year to represent our communities within Festival programming, we feel that connecting online to a province-wide audience further emphasizes the responsibility of presenting a public Film Festival. Kicking off the Festival with our Opening Night film – Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story – puts our best foot forward, presenting a loving portrait of musician Beverly Glenn-Copeland, a human beam of positivity and an artist finally receiving much deserved recognition fifty years into his career.”

October 16 marks the Opening Night, with our premiere screening starting at 7:00 pm! Immediately following, and for the remainder of the Festival, all 40+ Festival films will be available to watch at any time on our online platform! Throughout the Festival’s ten days, we will be offering special free programming, including online film discussions, director Q+As, and a live online short film program. While our Full Program is to be announced on October 1, AGH Film fans have enjoyed sneak peeks at a few Festival selections thus far. Included in these previewed titles are this year’s Best Film Golden Bear-winner There Is No Evil, the Hamilton-set cancer-scam drama White Lie, and the fiery artificial-intelligence documentary Coded Bias.

Committed to nurturing future talent in cinema arts, the Festival is also proud to host the fourth annual Youth Film Challenge. Youth ages 13 to 25 are invited to create and submit a short film for the chance to have it presented as part of the festival. Further, the first-ever AGH Family Film Challenge presents an opportunity for families to create a short film and present it to the public during the Festival! One family will be chosen to receive the audience choice award for their standout film.
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About the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Founded in 1914, the Art Gallery of Hamilton is the oldest and largest public art gallery in southwestern Ontario. Its permanent collection, which is focused on historical Canadian, 19th-century European, and International and Contemporary art, numbers more than 10,000 works and is recognized as one of Canada’s finest. The AGH is a vital creative hub and centre of lifelong learning that enables people of all ages to enrich their lives by gaining a deeper understanding of art. The Gallery is supported by the City of Hamilton, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

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