ReelWorld Film Festival

This week, Toronto welcomes the 12th Annual ReelWorld Film Festival, which was founded by actress Tonya Lee Williams, to celebrate diversity in film. This Friday, at Famous Players Canada Square Cinemas at 8:30 p.m., Kardinal Offishall and RT! will be hosting the festival’s annual Music Video Night as part of the five-day event.

Attendees can expect music videos from a wide range of genres by Canadian artists and directors from all over the country, including Classified, Fefe Dobson, Shad, Rich Kidd and A-Game among many others.

Cazhhmere, a Toronto director who has worked on videos for Classified, Masia One and Choclair has gained a relationship with ReelWorld for many years. She was asked to program this year’s event, as she found that there is not as much acknowledgement of the art of music videos by the film community.

“Nobody that has a specialty in the genre of music videos and I felt that that was reflective in previous years and I wanted to shed a little but more light on what’s out there from Canadian filmmakers that are making music videos,” she says. “It was not on people’s radar. There aren’t a lot of festivals that acknowledge music videos as a film medium. Some people don’t take music videos seriously. They look at it as commercials for artists and that’s not really what it is. Most directors don’t know that there are festivals out there like the ReelWorld that are dedicated to the work that we do.”

With events such as Music Video Night, Cazhhmere hopes to draw attention to the program and aid in giving a voice to the medium of music videos.
Canadian pop artist, Anastasia will debut the music video for her new single “Kiss & Tell” at Friday’s event, a video that she describes as fun and flirty. She says that festivals and events like Music Video Night at the ReelWorld are important for artists like her to showcase what they can bring to the table and give them a platform to release their material.

“It brings everyone together and I think the most important part of being involved in art, film or music is bringing people closer together and connecting people through music or film so I think that holding a festival like this is very important. People need to come together and to collaborate and share their experiences and their talents and bring it all together into one big festival.”

Host Kardinal Offishall will be premiering a short film which he wrote, directed and starred in, and is using as a promotional platform for the release of his upcoming album, Mr. International; following that he will participate in a Q&A session with the audience.

Both Cazhhmere and Anastasia say they look forward to attending other ReelWorld events taking place this week, such as the film screening of LUV, a feature film starring rapper/actor Common, which will kick-off the festival as the opening gala at Cineplex Odeon Sheppard Cinemas on Yonge & Sheppard at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 11.

For a complete listing of ReelWorld events and programming, visit www.reelworld.ca