TORONTO – Big news for the Italian Contemporary Film Festival as they beat out TIFF at the annual Canadian Event Awards. The ICFF won the prestigious annual award for “Best Corporate Event” of 2024, for their Closing Gala, A Night with Isabella (Rossellini). The grassroots, non-profit Italian Film Festival – also known as the Lavazza Inclucity Festival – began in 2012 as a four-day event, hosted in a single venue.
Today the festival includes screenings across multiple Canadian cities including Toronto, Vaughan, Hamilton, Niagara, Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City. In Toronto, ICFF’s Festival Village and “Under the Stars” outdoor screening is held at the Distillery District from June 27 to July 21, and hosts various artforms and cultural soirees. ICFF’s rolodex and radar for talent means Canadians get to enjoy Italy’s most compelling films and artists – during a month-long celebration.
The latest victory for ICFF was earned specifically for last year’s closing Gala which took place at the Hearn in Toronto. The Hearn is a decommissioned electrical generating station which over the years has been repurposed for film shoots like Red, Pacific Rim, Robocop and Star Trek. It was also used for Luminato’s Big Bang Bash and the Yves Saint Laurent Opening Night Party in 2014, due to its “Pharaonic scale”. How Pharaonic? It could theoretically fit 12 Parthenons.
Located in Toronto’s Port Lands area, the Hearn was transformed into a luxurious venue to host the Italian film legend Isabella Rossellini. She was awarded The International Lifetime Achievement Award in front of nearly 500 guests, for her illustrious career in film, television and modelling. On the night, Rossellini gave her first English Masterclass, captivating attendees with insights on her influences, citing her admiration for film pioneers like Georges Méliès and Buster Keaton.
Speaking about her foray into directing, she credited Méliès specifically, even playing a clip from his 1902 film A Trip to the Moon: “Georges Méliès was one of the first filmmakers, he made films at the beginning of the 1900s and the camera was as big as where I’m sitting, so they couldn’t move. Yet his films were beautiful and full of fantasy. So when I decided to become a director, I said I’m going to work just like Georges Méliès”.
For nearly 30 years, the Canadian Event Awards (CEA) have been regarded as the most prestigious recognition in Canada’s event industry. Dually important, ICFF was competing against seven nominees, including The Chair’s Dinner, a Paul Anka Event at TIFF. The Toronto International Film Festival is the most publicly attended film festival in the world and most popular in North America. Not to mention their recent $23m boost in Federal Funding.
But ICFF, perhaps more than its cross-town counterparts, are still very much involved with the community, helping to provide a platform for local talents, and connecting artists with industry. Because unlike Isabella, not everyone is born into the business.
In the pic above, Isabella Rossellini at the ICFF closing gala “A Night with Isabella”
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
