The ReFrame Peterborough International Film Festival will again be happening in our community this weekend. For those not in the know, ReFrame is a selection of socially conscious films, chosen from around the world by a volounteer collective. Venues for the films this year include Markethall, Showplace and The Venue. Student priced ($12) festival passes are available now from the TCSA office, or downtown at GreenUp and Titles bookstore. Find more info about scheduling and films at reframefilmfestival.ca.

Festival Director Krista English was able to spare some time from her busy schedule to answer some of our questions.

Arthur: What is the process for selecting films?

K.E.: ReFrame has a programming committee made up of community members some with a great deal of film experience and others who are simply interested in film. We start viewing films in June/July and finish in October. The films come from a various of sources. We do have a “call for submissions” for films and receive a great deal of films from the call we put out. If I see a film has done very well at other film festivals I will also contact the filmmaker or the producer to see if they would consider submitting the film to our festival. All films are watched by a variety of programmers and there are lengthy discussions about each and every film.

Arthur: Are there any recurrent themes in the 2012 film selections?

K.E.: We do have recurring themes. We want to have a good variety of films so we have categories like – Women’s Issues, the Environment, Activism, indigenous, LGBT… that we make sure we have films from. In the program in the middle with the schedule you can see all the different categories we try to have films from

Arthur: Is there a particular film that stands out for you this year?

K.E.: I think that particular films will stand out for particular people but for me I really liked Nim’s Project, A If a Tree Falls, and of course the two feature films. There is also a film called We Were Here that I found very very moving and thought it was really well done. I could go on and on but I recommend people read the program and find films that they think they will like. I don’t think they will be disappointed. Another film that I learned a lot about was The Creator’s Game- a film that was made by a woman who grew up very close to the are in Ontario that I grew up.

Arthur: Why is Reframe important to our community?

K.E.: ReFrame is community. We have so many people who help make this happen so I look at it as a community event. Yes, I work all year organizing the festival but if I didn’t have dedicated volunteers it just would happen. We also receive monetary sponsorship from The City of Peterborough, Trillium as well as individuals and organizations big and small. People give of their personal time like the person who edits for us, designs our catalogue and poster, writes and records our radio adverts, edits our video. The list could go on and on. For these reasons, it says to me the community wants the festival and that is important. ReFrame also shows films with a balanced perspective so maybe folks learn something that they had no idea about. We show independent films that don’t have huge corporate sponsorship so they are not “controlled” by the large corps on content. I think the community thinks this is important