THUNDER BAY – The Vox Popular Media festival kicked off its week-long virtual celebration with an in-person concert and outdoor screening of independent films, some of which were created by local filmmakers.
“This is our 17th year, but this is our first year like this, we’re doing this live here at a park because of COVID, that way we can social distance, and we have live music and we’ve got much more emphasis on music,” said Adrien Harpelle.
“We’ve also got our first virtual art gallery, and we’ve got 100 local artists involved this year, which is like, incredible, so, we’ve been operating for 17 years. We used to be called the Bay Street Film Festival, now, we’re Vox Popular Media Arts Festival.”
The event on Thursday brought in roughly 100 attendees to Waverly Park. It started at 7 p.m. with opening remarks by Harpelle, followed by a musical performance by Rodney Brown and a virtual gallery of local art.
“I think the turnout’s really great right now. I think more people are going to show up, we just started and I’m really excited, I think this is more than what I expected. I put this together two months ago, I had no idea what would happen, so I’m very grateful,” Harpelle said,
“Everybody comes out, people are really eager to finally see, you know, something happening, people are really happy that they’re finally coming out.”
The event in Waverly Park was an opening act for the virtual festival which is happening from Sept. 16 to Sept. 26.
This year’s online festival will feature 50+ films from local, Canadian, and international filmmakers, Q&A panel discussions with filmmakers, seven part concert series, a virtual art gallery, and an art creation contest titled: #ArtForThePeople.
The festival will also include a daily virtual concert series that will happen at 7 p.m. each day. Artists performing in the concert series are Danny Johnson, Danielle Polari, Action Cat, Wrong Odds, Rodney Brown, Morning Light Acoustic Quartet, and Jake Vaillant and the Town.
For more information on the events, visit their website
