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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Gimli Film Festival breaks attendance records
WHILE the Winnipeg Fringe Festival was packing in audiences in the city, the Gimli Film Festival was breaking attendance records in the Interlake community of 6,000. The festival, in its 12th year, reported a total attendance of 13,500 people over five days during the fest's run July 25-29.
Of that number, 9,900 of the attendees checked out the free beach screenings, topping out with the screening of Steven Spielberg's ET: The Extraterrestrial on Friday night with an estimated 4,500 people on the beach.
An estimated 3,600 people attended the screenings in the fest's four indoor venues. Festival passholders were turned away from some full-house screenings, such as the Wednesday night doc Meet the Fokkens in Venue 2, the Lady of the Lake Theatre.
Festival director Cheryl Ashton says that while full houses aren't a bad problem to have, the sellouts did spotlight the need for more and larger venues to screen films.
"We're at capacity," Ashton said.
At the festival's opening ceremony, Senator Janis Johnson, a chairwoman of the Gimli fest, discussed a dedicated theatre being built for the fest as it grows. Ashton says such a plan is likely years away.
"For now, we're looking at creating more venues, checking out gymnasiums or looking at the middle school. "
The weather favoured the festival this year, although Sunday night's beach screening of Blue Hawaii was threatened by the high winds that swept through the province coincident with the end of the festival.
"At 9 o'clock, we couldn't drop the screen because of the winds," Ashton says. "But by 9:30 the winds died down and it was a beautiful evening."
The fest's attendance numbers represented an impressive 60 per cent increase over last year's festival.
Next year's Gimli Film Festival is scheduled to take place July 24-28.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 31, 2012 C2
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