CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival
The Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film Festival (WSFF), founded by Brenda Sherwood in 1994, was an annual film festival held over several days in Toronto, Ontario in June, at The Annex-Yorkville area venues; including the Bloor Cinema, the University of Toronto, and the Isabel Bader Theatre, among others. As well as film screenings, the festival hosted parties and the CFC's annual picnic. The WSFF held accreditation, and was recognized as a qualifying event for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and the  British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) short film awards. This means that certain award-winners at the WSFF were eligible to be nominated for the Oscars, Genies, and BAFTAs awards. In 2012, the festival received 4,768 submissions from 113 countries, making it the largest short film festival in North America at that time. The festival was described in the "Canadian Encyclopedia" as "a popular and productive meeting place for audiences, filmmakers, buyers and sellers interested in the art and commerce of making movies in short form", and this was reflected in the Short Films Big Ideas Symposium, which  featured master classes and panel discussions focused on professional development for those involved in the industry. Each year the festival offered a celebrity program, which featured films with actors such as Scott Thompson, Judi Dench, David Duchovny, Michael Fassbender, Max von Sydow, Natalie Portman, Dick Van Dyke, Don Cheadle, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Gérard Depardieu, Stephen Fry, and Anthony Hopkins, among others. The festival also screened films by celebrity directors, including Errol Morris, Spike Jonze, Rachel Weisz, Talmage Cooley, Courteney Cox, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In addition to the annual screenings in June, the festival also ran  a monthly screening series called A World of Shorts. History. The Worldwide Short Film Festival was founded in 1994, and operated independently under the direction of Brenda Sherwood until 2000, when the Festival was acquired by the Canadian Film Centre (CFC). The Centre brought some professional expertise to the venture: Wayne Clarkson, the CFC's executive director, who was the former head of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), from 1978 to 1985. Brenda Sherwood was replaced as festival director by Shane Smith (2000-2006). Sherwood continued to serve on the festival advisory committee for 2001 festival season. Since 2001 , under the direction of Shane Smith, the CFC-WSFF attendance doubled to over 15,000, and submissions increased to over 4,200. The CFC-WSFF also hosted the largest digital marketplace for short films in North America. Several CFC-WSFF juried short films went on to be nominated for Academy Awards. A few, like Chris Landreth's animated documentary "Ryan", won the 2004 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, and the 25th Genie Award for Best Animated Short. Other Oscar winners include "Harvie Krumpet" by Adam Elliot (2003), "Wasp" by Andrea Arnold (2004) and "The Danish Poet" by Torill Kove (2006). IMAX  Exhibition. From 2004-to-2006, Festival Director Shane Smith, and festival researcher Peter Hasek pursued the idea of curating a 45-minute presentation of large format IMAX 15/70mm short films. This presentation was to have been screened at one of the IMAX theaters in downtown Toronto, as part of the CFC-WSFF program. The effort had support from Kodak Canada and the English Animation Department of the National Film Board of Canada. The event was to be promoted with tongue-in-cheek, but in fact, as "the only presentation at the Worldwide Short Film Festival that actually uses film." With  only a dozen-or-so 15/70mm short films in existence, the long-term plan was to create a boutique distribution service and "circuit" for large format short films; with each festival offering its own pro-rated "audience choice" cash award system. The goal was to create a reliable source of income for large format short film makers. The debut screening of the 15/70mm large format short film platter was to have been held during the Worldwide Short Film Festival, at one of the IMAX theaters in downtown Toronto in June, 2006 followed by a screening for the Cinéfest  Sudbury International Film Festival, at the Science North IMAX Theater in Sudbury, Ontario in September, 2006. Following these two festival screenings, the 15/70mm platter was destined for on-going, for-profit screenings at the Western Fair IMAX Theater in London, Ontario in exchange for their help with the project. The Western Fair IMAX projection room and other facilities were to be used for print traffic co-ordination and revision work needed to assemble a 45-minute presentation of 15/70mm short films. There were tentative plans for screening this ad hoc platter of 15/70mm short films at other  IMAX theaters in Canada, and the United States, wherever the local IMAX theater had a strong partnership with their local, mainstream film festival that was similar to the working arrangement and relationship between the Cinéfest group and Science North, in Sudbury, Ontario. This plan fell through over time when: In the end, it was determined that the scope and human resource requirements of The LF Project was so wide and deep, it would require the formation of a separate, double bottom line non-profit organization in order to fully develop, implement and maintain the goal, set forth by Shane Smith  and Peter Hasek, of curating a traveling presentation of IMAX short films that was both manageable and financially sustainable. Shane Smith retired as festival director of the CFC-WSFF after the 2006 festival season, and was replaced by former print traffic coordinator, Eileen Arandiga, who is currently the Director of Partnerships and Events at the Canadian Film Centre. Shane Smith is currently the Toronto Film Festival's Director of Special Projects. In early 2013, the Canadian Film Centre began a re-evaluation of its public activities. As part of this re-evaluation process, the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival was  put on hiatus. Previous award winners. Academy Awards Oscars qualifications, nominations and wins. Up until the 2012 film festival season, and the 2013 hiatus, the Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film Festival offered two Academy-accredited awards. Winners of the Best Animated Short award and the Deluxe Award for Best Live-Action Short qualify to be nominated for an Oscar. From 2001-to-2012, the following short films were screened at the Worldwide Short Film Festival, and were later nominated for an Oscar.