The Oakville Festivals of Film and Art is a not-for-profit organization that runs the Oakville Film Festival, as well as special screening and Arts events such as the Sheridan/OFFA Annual Screening series. The festival celebrated its 10th year in 2023, and has been held the third week of June every year for over 10 years. The festival includes a juried award competition with senior members of the Canadian film and production communities, and Audience Choice Awards for the best feature and best short film. The festival uses Film Freeway for its submissions, which are open 1st November every year, and has a track record of programming over 70% of its programming from the platform. The festival screens its films at three primary venues in Oakville: Film.ca Cinemas, The Five Drive In, and the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts.
The festival is a Canadian Screen Award Qualifying Event. An Industry Summit for the Canadian Film Industry and local filmmakers is held every year in conjunction with the festival, but during the pandemic, this became a year-round event that features live and virtual industry workshops/panels, which provide professional development for the filmmaking community. To date, the festival has attracted over 25,000 event participants, screened almost 700 films, and attracted over 1000 industry guests.
For 2023, the festival hosted a hybrid festival that featured a full week of screenings with over 100 films, many of which were available live and virtually. In addition, thanks to a Trillium Resilient Communities fund grant, the festival was able to livestream all of its events, Q&As, and performances for its 2023 event. The 2023 festival launched on National Indigenous Peoples Day, June 21, 2023, with a special event at the Five-Drive In, partnering with Halton Organizations Grandmother’s Voice, the Five Drive In, and 101 Deweguns. This special event highlighted the local and national Indigenous communities featuring film, drumming, dancing, and a traditional Indigenous opening ceremony, as well as sports such as Lacrosse, and Beach Volleyball that attracted audiences from across the region of Halton/Peel. The event featured the Canadian Premiere of the Beehive, a sci-fi thriller written and directed by Vancouver-based, Red River Metis filmmaker, Alexander Lasheras. The event was attended by Alexander, actors Meadow Kingfisher (Rosemary), Kaydin Gibson (played Aaron) as well as producers Mike Johnston and Arun Fryer, originally from OFFA hometown Oakville. The Thursday night GALA featured a special evening which included the Eastern Canadian Theatrical Premiere of Rob Grabow’s 2022 hit film The Year of the Dog, (which has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) with Writer/Director and lead actor Rob (who plays Matt) in attendance, as well as Actor Allyson Groenig (who played Julie). As well to launch Pride Weekend, OFFA's 2023 popular Friday Canadian Gala featured the Canadian Theatrical Premiere of the Alberta 2023 film, Polarized, from Director/Writer Shamim Sarif, The event was attended by Sarif, Producer Hanan Kattan and actors Holly Deveaux and Maxine Denis. It was preceded with a performance by singer/songwriter Brooke Palsson, who wrote and performed much of the music for the film. The 2023 festival also featured the regional Premiere of the 2022 documentary, Lancaster, with a live, zoom Q&A with Directors David Fairfield and Ant Palmer, which along with four other screenings including Matt Johnson’s critically-acclaimed hit film, Blackberry, attended by writer Matt Miller, was sold out.
The Sheridan Alumni/Film.ca annual screening series featured many regional premieres of award-winning films, including the regional Premieres of North of Normal, a screening of the Canadian Screen award winner, I Like Movies with Writer/Director Chandler Levack in attendance, as well as an exclusive pre-release screening of Director Sarah Polley’s Academy-Award Winning film. Women Talking, attended by Canadian Actor Michelle McLeod (who plays Mejal in the film) plus several Sheridan Alumni who worked on the film. All screenings were attended by Sheridan alumni who worked on the films.