Vox Popular is a non-profit Media Arts Festival in Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada and is the evolution of the Bay Street Film Festival. We program Canadian and International films, multimedia installations, and media artists of all genres. An annual film festival is held in September each year with the 19th year approaching for 2023. The festival will include local, Canadian, and international films; a concert series; a virtual gallery; and panel discussions with filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists!
In 2022 Vox Popular is celebrating its 18th annual film festival! Vox Popular helps professional independent artists show their work to audiences of all ages, interests and abilities to enrich their experience of media arts.
The annual film festival is an integral part of Northwestern Ontario’s film history and since its inception in 2005 has celebrated the ongoing achievements of independent filmmakers. The Festival focuses on showcasing the latest films of emerging and established professional independent filmmakers working in remote and isolated communities around the world so the diverse stories and perspectives of the near and far North are given increased visibility and prominence.
In the past eighteen years, Vox Popular Media Arts Festival has screened over 850 films, hosted over 120 visiting filmmakers from Northwestern Ontario, Canada and around the world, held dozens of discussions and highly successful Master Classes. Our audiences are of all ages and interests including the Finnish, First Nations, Francophone and other specific communities in our region.
Vox Popular is located at 4A Court Street South. Unit 17 in downtown Thunder Bay.
Thunder Bay, Ontario is located on Lake Superior between Toronto, Ontario (1 hour and 40 minute flight) and Winnipeg, Manitoba (1 hour and 15 minute flight) and a 475 km flight distance north of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The city is serviced by an international airport. Check out www.thunderbay.ca for more information about Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario. Vox Popular acknowledges that our office and festival are on the traditional territory of the Anishnaabe People, and in the area of the Robinson Superior Treaty (1850).
We pay screening fees to artists and distributors*, according to current CARFAC (Canadian Artist Representation/Le Front des Artistes Canadiens) rates. We provide several travel grants to help subsidize the expenses of filmmakers from around the world* traveling to Thunder Bay to present their film, participate in Q&A sessions after screenings, participate in panel discussions and most importantly, to interact and share film and film-making experiences with Northwestern Ontario communities. * Some restrictions may apply