Peterborough has no shortage of advocates for the arts, and two of the most passionate are Kait Dueck and Eryn Lidster, the full-time staff behind the annual ReFrame Film Festival.
The duo shows their dedication to the arts by curating a lineup of the year’s most acclaimed documentary films from around the globe, while also inviting local conversation and action to address critical contemporary issues facing the community and the world.
“ReFrame moves us from just imagining a better world to living in one, through the action that is sparked by this cultural and justice-based event,” says Dueck, the festival’s executive director. “Not only are these some of the finest films in the world, but they’re also richly complemented by all of this wonderful ancillary programming at the festival, such as live performances, filmmaker talks, workshops, and media arts exhibits.”
The 21st annual festival is being delivered in a hybrid format for the second year, running in person from January 23 to 26, 2025 at venues in downtown Nogojiwanong/Peterborough and virtually from January 27 to February 2, 2025.
While the virtual portion of the festival began as a necessity during the pandemic, it has continued because it expands the festival’s reach, allowing people from across Canada to enjoy many of the films in the festival’s lineup.
For 2025, ReFrame is screening more than 50 thought-provoking and inspiring documentary films. The lineup was curated with the support and insight from the festival’s volunteer programming advisory committee, made up of individuals with a diverse range of perspectives and experience.
“We looked at a lot of different factors, while keeping the Peterborough audiences in mind with films that speak to issues that are of concern here or which groups here are working within,” says Lidster, the festival’s creative director.
“We also put a lot of consideration around the relationship between the filmmakers and the film subjects. Being a social justice documentary festival, we want to make sure that, more often than not, there is an aspect of folks telling stories that they have lived experience around, or who have built strong relationships with the subjects of the films.”
Lidster notes that the inclusion of international films can also elevate conversations around issues being faced locally.
“Bringing these international films to the local community can spark a moment of being inspired by an approach that we might not have thought about,” Lidster says, giving the example of The Day Iceland Stood Still, which recounts the morning in 1975 when 90 per cent of women in Iceland walked off their jobs and out of their homes, refusing to cook, clean, work, or care for the children.
“The Day Iceland Stood Still highlights an action that a group of women took that’s really unique. Bringing those stories to our community can inspire a lot of different ways of approaching the issues that we’re dealing with.”
Lidster also points to the impact of sharing local films, noting that the short film The Wild Path Home “has this unique approach to education and environment that deserves to be heard outside of our community and inspire others as well.”
The Wild Path Home spotlights how the Peterborough-Kawarthas-Haliburton area was, in 2016, one of only 150 communities worldwide to be given the designation as a “Regional Centre of Expertise in Sustainability Education.”
Local specialists in environment, health, and educational fields, who were increasingly alarmed by the human draw to technology, made a framework of age-linked experiences to address global issues through community support, and saw young people being drawn back to the great outdoors to improve mental health, reduce stress, and improve leadership skills.
VIDEO: “The Wild Path Home” trailer
To further promote actionable steps festival-goers can take in their own community, ReFrame offers community partnerships for single films or a themed package of films. The program not only supports the festival, but aligns the stories on the screen with the social and environmental justice work of registered charities, not-for-profit organizations, and grassroots community groups.
“We get to help elevate this critical work for our audiences,” Dueck points out. “Our audiences are connected with concrete avenues toward positive action that’s related to the film content, which is something I have never seen any other film festival do.”
Businesses, for-profit groups, and individuals can also sponsor an individual screening to show their support for the festival and to highlight one or more of the issues covered in the films.
“You can sponsor a film in honour of a loved one, you can sponsor a film as a gift, or you can sponsor it yourself because the film is something that you’re passionate about,” Dueck says, also noting how businesses can benefit from such sponsorship. “It’s a great way to elevate your brand and have your brand linked to important community values and issues.”
Other opportunities to support the festival include joining the board (the festival is currently seeking a treasurer), volunteering for a handful of shifts at the Delta Bingo & Gaming Centre in Nogojiwanong / Peterborough, or volunteering during the in-person festival.
Festival volunteer roles, which can be flexible to accommodate the volunteer’s availability, include audience services like working in the box office, merchandising, ushering, and providing technical support.
To learn more about volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, visit reframefilmfestival.ca/support/.
Volunteering, partnerships, sponsorships, and donations all help to support the sustainability of the festival. When ReFrame began offering the virtual portion of the festival, it did so without increased resources, continuing to operate with just two full-time staff and two contract workers.
However, as Dueck explains, there are additional costs associated with offering the virtual portion of the festival.
On top of the added administration costs for the virtual festival’s streaming platform, ReFrame must pay for the films twice — once when screening them in person and again when screening them online. Because of this as well as licensing restrictions, just over half of the films in the festival’s complete lineup are available for virtual screening.
Despite its additional costs, Dueck says the virtual option is critical to maintaining ReFrame’s accessibility, which is part of the organization’s mandate.
“Both delivery models are critical, and our audiences and stakeholders have been crystal clear in their desire for both,” says Dueck.
Including a virtual option also contributes to the festival’s revenues, with hybrid passes — which allow festival-goers to watch both in-person screenings and virtual screenings — accounting for roughly half of all ticket sales.
Not only has ReFrame been supporting the hybrid model without any additional funding, the festival has recently lost significant funding from what Dueck calls their “two largest, most reliable” funders. This year, one funder has given less than half of what they had previously in each of the last dozen years, while the other has cut funding completely, just six weeks before the 2025 festival.
“As much as we would love to continue to bring ReFrame to our community both near and far in this way, without increased support from donors, sponsors, and grants, we may not always be able to do this,” Dueck points out.
Fortunately for ReFrame and 74 other arts and social services organizations that receive funding from the City of Peterborough, Peterborough city council recently decided against proceeding with a 25 per cent across-the-board funding cut that was proposed in the city’s 2025 draft budget. Community members rallied against the proposed cuts, and representatives from several arts organizations presented to council, describing the cultural and economic benefits that arts-related events like ReFrame bring to the city.
“People come here and stay here because of the culture that arts in this community creates, and it’s backed up by the number of folks who engage with the festival and the economic impact that we have here,” Lidster explains.
“We do so much work for creating space for other community organizations in the festival and there is this networking community that is built through these events. These types of spaces in the community are not something that we can lose and still be the community that we are.”
Dueck points to a recent statistic from the Ontario Arts Council that, for every dollar invested in the arts, $25 is generated in return.
“For ReFrame, it’s hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars injected directly into our downtown, which needs it the most — it’s where our independent businesses are,” Dueck says. “In the darkest time of year after the holiday season, when small businesses may be wondering how to sustain themselves for the next month, there’s a week of money coming into our community thanks to ReFrame.”
Along with buying passes to enjoy the festival, community members can help ensure the ReFrame Film Festival continues into the future by making a donation at reframefilmfestival.ca/support/donate/, with charitable tax receipts available for any donation over $20.
You can make donations in January and February and still claim them on your 2024 tax return, as the federal government recently announced it is extending the deadline for claiming 2024 charitable tax donations to February 28 in recognition of the impact of the postal strike on holiday giving for charitable organizations.
As for festival passes, they are priced at $50 for a virtual pass (which includes just over half of the films in the festival’s lineup, viewable on demand from anywhere in Canada), $110 for an in-person pass (which includes access to all in-person films and events, except for the yet-to-be-announced opening night event), and $135 for a hybrid pass (which includes everything in the virtual pass and the in-person pass). Tickets will soon be on sale for individual screenings, on a pay-what-you-can sliding scale.
Passes and a guide to all the films screening at the 2025 festival are available at reframefilmfestival.ca. Follow ReFrame on Facebook and Instagram for updates and last-minute schedule changes.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the 2025 ReFrame Film Festival.
