Vox Popular Film Festival
My Friend Saabe
Celebrating Visual Storytelling From Our Region and Beyond
By Taylor Onski
An annual celebration of new and exciting stories, the Vox Popular Film Festival is back. WIth live music and Definitely Superior Art Gallery’s 37th Regional Juried Exhibition, Liminal, featured alongside the many film screenings, there is something for everyone.
“The whole idea is that people are going to come in, hear live music, walk through the art gallery, and then see the films. We’re kind of going for a pretty cosy vibe this year: a fun night out of entertainment and a good variety of films. This year, we have a majority of short films, so it’s good if you have a short attention span,” says Adrien Harpelle, the festival’s director.
This year’s lineup features a variety of genres such as drama, comedy, documentary, horror, and thriller, with an emphasis on filmmakers from the region. “Our goal is to highlight local films and the local film industry, and we’ve been accomplishing that,” says Harpelle. His recommendations include Ron Harpelle’s satirical look at Lakehead history in The View from Up Here, Morningstar Derosier’s exploration of community through the friendship between a teenager and Saabe the sasquatch in My Friend Saabe, Kelly Saxberg and Navalik Tologanak’s search into the legacy of artists Susan Ross and Shelia Burnford in A Tale of Two Qallunaat, and Lempo, Laura-Lynn Petrick’s film following a character’s struggle with the intergenerational Finnish demon, Lempo, that followed her ancestors to Lappe, Ontario.
As for non-local films playing at the festival, Harpelle highlights We Lend a Hand: The Forgotten Story of Ontario Farmerettes, a southern Ontario-based film by Colin T. Field that follows the story of how 40,000 teenage girls helped win World War II by volunteering on Canadian farms, and the Korean coming-of-age film Water Lilies by Chanho Lee that explores what it means to limit young people and their ambitions.
“There’s something funny, something that’ll make you think, something that’ll pull on your heart strings. That’s our whole idea: have a full experience every night,” says Harpelle. “You’ll see something that you’ll never see again and have never seen before.”
Vox Popular Film Festival runs September 18–20 at Definitely Superior Art Gallery. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit voxpopular.ca or follow them on Instagram and Facebook @voxpopularfilmfestival.