"It's excellent to have the
dedication and passion of FWC on the front lines of celebrating the great
movies we make in this country."
·
Ingrid Veninger, pUNK Films Inc. and Board Member First Weekend Club
There
is so much love for Canadian films. We
are finally passionate about our product.
It’s proven it’s able to stand on its own on the world stage. Industry players like Sarah Polley,
Christopher Plummer, Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg and Xavier Dolan have won
the acclaim Canada has always deserved both at home and abroad but has rarely
achieved. Much of this new awareness
can be traced to the work of the First Weekend Club.
“Canada Screens” a new video-on-demand
streaming service featuring the work of Canadian filmmakers will be available
soon and it’s about time. There are few
opportunities for Canadians to see home-grown films outside of a major
city. All that has changed now, they are
coming to us. Visit www.canadascreens.ca
Ten
years ago, a group of forward thinking film fans banded together to find a way
to extend the tenure of Canadian films in theatres. When pitted against big
budget, highly marketed films from the US, Canadian films have suffered. Those all-important first weekend box office
figures determine their commercial viability and in some cases, places in
history.
The
First Weekend Club was created to extend possibility and awareness by
attracting folks to support Canadian films for that crucial bow. The FWC is a
non-profit group led by Anita Adams to raise awareness through special events,
content, film alerts and contests.
The
“pipe dream” was to keep Canadians plugged into their own film industry 24/7 in
innovative, fun, educational and social ways.
The First Weekend Club was the culmination of ideas from filmmakers,
distributors, exhibitors, film festivals and other areas of the film industry
in Canada.
Ten
years later the First Weekend Club has supported 300 films and hundreds of
filmmakers in 200 events. These folks
with a dream include Veninger, Chair, Whistler Film Festival's director of
programming Paul Grattan, Cineplex's Michael Kennedy, Alliance Film's Dan
Loewy, CMPA's Marc Seguin, Joker Film's Tim Brown, Pacific Northwest Pictures'
Emily Alden, EP Canada's Cheryl Nex, Cornel Fota and Jan Miller.
“When
I started First Weekend Club, I could not imagine where we’d be today,” says
Executive Director, Anita Adams, “I'm thrilled with how far we’ve come and to
have witnessed so many people eagerly embracing Canadian films.”
The
FWC offers supporting material including interviews, background and trailers,
special screening events and the all-important word-of-mouth. It claims that 90% of the films they have
supported “stay in theatres longer” including The Delicate Art of Parking, One
Week, Starbuck, The Corporation, Hit N’
Strum, Take This Waltz, C.R.A.Z.Y., It's
All Gone Pete Tong, Scared Sacred, Still Mine, Pontypool, Rebelle,
Passchendaele,
I
Declare War, The Lesser Blessed, Picture Day, Molly Maxwell.... it’s all on the
FWC website database.
The First Weekend Club has released a
birthday present of a 40 second video that showcases FWC’s history over the
past ten years. Visit http://firstweekendclub.ca to view the
video, learn about the programme and get involved.
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