The YoungCuts Film Festival is a Montreal-based international film festival, whose mandate is to advance the careers of young filmmakers. The Festival was created to identify and help talented young people begin their film and television careers by providing exposure and recognition of their works. The annual event selects the best 100 films submitted by filmmakers 25 years old and under for screening at the annual festival.
History
Originally launched as the Toronto International Teen Movie Festivalin 2001, the event was reorganized and re-launched as the YoungCuts Film Festival in 2005. In August 2006, the festival added Montreal as a venue and became bilingual, featuring 50 films including English and French titles. The Festival began to receive more submissions from around the world. In 2007, the Festival made Montreal its permanent home. The Festival also set a goal to increase the quantity and quality of films submitted to the festival. As a result, the festival expanded from 4 days to 8 and the number of films presented expanded from 50 to 100. The Festival has grown significantly since its inception, and has been actively supported by a number of television and film professionals including Tom Sizemore, Lalaine, Chris Potter, Maxim Roy, and Frédérick De Grandpré. Since its inception, YoungCuts has been asked to use its expertise to recruit young film makers for various projects and competitions including the National Film Board’s “Make Shorts Not War”, Air Canada's en Route Film Festival and the Pepsi Access competitions. The Festival has received the support of a number of major companies. Its sponsors have included Pepsi, Nokia, Astral Media, High Fidelity HDTV, Avid, Quebecor, Tribute Magazine and the City of Montreal. Louise Kierans is President of the Festival and Harvard MBA graduate Jay Moulton has been Festival Chairman since 2005. In 2007, the "YoungCuts Film Festival" added a charity component to its event. Since then the Festival has raised money for the "Canadian Colorectal Cancer Association", the "Cedars Cancer Institute" and in 2011 it raised money for the charity "Leave Out Violence". The Festival encourages participation from young filmmakers around the world. In 2009, more than one thousand films from twenty countries competed in the Festival. In 2010, entries were received from 30 countries. In 2011, more than 1,200 films were evaluated leading up to the Festival's 10th Anniversary celebration in September 2011. In 2012 over 1,100 films from 32 countries were evaluated; the top 100 films from various categories were screened in September 2012.
