Vox Popular Media Arts Festival (formerly the Bay Street Film Festival) will celebrate its 19th annual festival from September 7-10, 2023. Vox Popular programs all genres of media arts – documentary, features, shorts, experimental, 360VR, and installations made in Northwestern Ontario, Canada and internationally. The annual festival and year-round programming connects professional independent filmmakers with other artists and to audiences of all ages and interests by showing films, facilitating creative and professional development and multidisciplinary arts performance in an accessible, inclusive, friendly environment.

In the past 18 years, Vox Popular Media Arts Festival has screened 876 films; more than a dozen media arts installations; 360VR productions, Projection mapping immersive screen experiences, hosted 185 visiting filmmakers from Canada and around the world; hosted dozens of Q&A’s and 30 highly successful Master Classes; engaged audiences of all ages and interests including Indigenous, Francophone,  LGBTQ2S+, disabled and other culturally diverse groups in our community; and paid artist fees to filmmakers for 18 years. Since 2016, we conducted five 360/VR hands-on workshops, and presented 6 x 360 Projection Mapping installations.

We are supported by Heritage Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, Ontario Arts Council and many dedicated local sponsors. We provide up to ten travel grants to help subsidize travel expenses of out of town filmmakers, allowing them the opportunity to come to Thunder Bay to present their film, participate in Q&A periods after the screening, lead master classes and most importantly, to interact and celebrate media arts of all genres. We also Skype/ZOOM in filmmakers who are unable to attend but would like to engage our audience. Since 2016 we have included 360 VR Oculus Rift screening stations.

The 19th Annual Vox Popular Media Arts Festival will be held at the Definitely Superior Art Gallery.

Thunder Bay is located on Lake Superior between Toronto, Ontario, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, north-east of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it is serviced by an national airport. Be sure to check out www.thunderbay.ca for more information about the city and region we call home. 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).

Since 2020, we have presented films virtually in addition to our in person events. As we move to the post-COVID era, we continue to screen select films on ResearchTV.ca for 5 days following the in person event. This allows immune compromised people to experience the festival from their home and creates greater accessibility to the films. Filmmakers have no obligation to be apart of the online portion of the festival and we can geo block and/or cap off views if necessary. It is a wonderful way to reach larger audiences.