Every September since 1980 the biggest film festival east of Montreal parks itself on Spring Garden Road and runs Halifax on cinema time. Eight days of Atlantic Canadian premieres, the pick of the fall circuit and a co-production market working the same lobby — with a red carpet at one end of the week, a closing gala at the other, and a run of parties in between that mostly cost nothing to walk into.
AIFF runs its own box office through Eventive and publishes every screening, panel and party with times, rooms and content notes. Programmes shift right up to the day of, so we point you at the source rather than re-typing it.
A handful of other receptions — DOC Atlantic’s oyster party, the WIFT-AT Snack Bar — are members-and-passholders affairs. Full list, with the ones that need a delegate badge, on the festival’s events page.
Eight days of screenings does not run itself. Ushering, box office, venue teams — the standard trade is shifts for access, and it is how a lot of the local industry started.
AIFF Partners runs a co-production and co-financing market through the first days of the festival, and the Filmmaker Lab puts new Atlantic shorts in front of an audience on the Sunday night.
A festival this size in a city this size runs on grants, partners and donations. Memberships come with tickets and discounts; donations just keep the projector on.