About Us / Contact /Volunteering

About Us

The Toronto Silent Film Festival is a volunteer run, not-for-profit founded in late 2009 by Shirley Hughes and Marc Wonnacott with the vision to bring audiences and the magic of the Silent Film experience together.

Meet some of the team.

Want to be a volunteer at the festival? Drop us an email and tell us about yourself.

Shirley Hughes, Co-Founder, Festival Director, Programmer

Shirley Hughes has become a recognized figure in the Toronto film community since initiating the successful Toronto Silent Film Festival with Marc Wonnacott in 2010. Her dedication with film history stems from a fascination and study stretching back several decades, when she became a regular at vintage film festivals, as a member, and later board member of the Toronto Film Society, one of Canada's original film societies, and as a film collector. A few of her film-related endeavours have included co-founding Goddess Film & Entertainment Inc. in the late '90s (producing and marketing art videos, features, and shorts), assisting in projects on early cinema for print articles, radio and TV, consulting on early film inclusion for films, and acting as vice-president of the TFS for over half a decade. She has also been a guest lecturer at Metropolitan University and at Tiff Lightbox.

She is currently focused on developing the Toronto Silent Film Festival, showcasing the diversity of silent film and presenting unique "live cinema" screenings accompanied by musicians. She is also a co-founder and resident femme fatale of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate, searching out dark treasures from the noir canon for the big screen.

Marc Wonnacott, Co-Founder, Festival Director

Marc is the design brains behind the festival and works mostly behind the scenes to make sure things run smoothly and probems are solved.

Chris Seguin, Comedy Programmer

Chris has been the Toronto Silent Film Festival’s comedy programmer since its inception. His affection for silent comedy began with a schoolroom screening of the iconic NFB film The Railrodder starring Buster Keaton, and he’s immersed itself in it ever since. Chris has contributed as a researcher and writer to numerous book and DVD/blu-ray releases, including “CHASE! A Tribute to the Keystone Cops”; Harry Langdon: Lost and Found and Becoming Charley Chase (both from All Day Entertainment); The British Film Institute’s restoration of Laurel & Hardy’s final film, Atoll K; Eureka Entertainment’s Buster Keaton: Masters of Cinema Volume 3; and Cinemuseum’s upcoming Mack Sennett Volume 2 and Blue Collar Buster Keaton.

Christina Stewart, Archival Consultant, Programmer

Christina is Assistant Media Archivist at University of Toronto's Media Commons Archive. She has a background in Media Arts and is a graduate of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman Museum. She has worked with collections at the CNE Archives, Northeast Historic Film, National Steinbeck Center, and the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. While working on the Warner Bros. Nitrate Film Collection at George Eastman Museum, she also taught Selznick students nitrate film handling and archival film inspection. She has also taught film identification and handling at Metropolitan (Ryerson) University.

Christina has previously been a guest programmer at TSFF and has been a valuable consultant for several years.

Chris MaGee, Front of House Manager, Programmer

For the past 13 years Chris has written, lectured about and curated films from Japan, overseeing programs for Nippon Connection in Frankfurt, The Powell Street Festival in Vancouver and the CanAsian Dance Festival in Toronto. For four years (2009-12) he was also the co-director of Toronto's own Shinsedai Cinema Festival which showcased independent film from Japan. He has contributed essays and content to releases by Third Window Films, Evokative Films and KimStim, as well as editing the Tokyo volume of Intellect Books World Film Locations series. Chris joins TSFF as Asian Film Consultant and will also put his extensive management experience to good use.

VOLUNTEERING

Join the Team! We're a volunteer run organization and so we are always looking to add to the team effort either at the festival or at our Fox programmes. We try to make it easy, fun and enjoyable for all. Drop us a line and tell us a bit about yourself. You don't have to be knowledgeable about silent films, just enthusiastic, reliable and willing to learn some basic technology (Eventbrite check-in, Square POS system). You'll get to see some great films, get a cool t-shirt, invites to our co-presentations etc.

But the festival is more than just the weekend! Want to volunteer outside the festival dates? We're looking for people with one or more of the following skill sets: fundraising, raffle organization, video editing, logistics, volunteer co-ordinator.

GET IN TOUCH / NEWSLETTER

Mailing Address: 140 Rhodes Ave. Toronto, Ontario M4L 3A1

Please note: The Festival does not have a telephone contact

Notice to all filmmakers: The festival does not accept unsolicited contemporary films for programming

Newsletter Members get first notice of events coming up, newsletter member only contests. Newsletters are published 10 per year. If you wish to join, go to our home page and look for the form sign up at the bottom of the page or email us and we'll add you on.

torontosilentfilm (at) gmail (dot) com

THANK YOU...
to everyone who attended our Mini Fests in late 2021/early 2022, our weekend November festival in 2022 and our return to our usual dates in April 2023.

We would also like to thank all our outstanding volunteers, the venues and their staff, and local businesses, archives and distributers and film restorers that we use to put the festival on. Without each of them, this festival would not exist.

FRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL

Steve Teppermann Christina Stewart Nathan Moles Alan Jay Nuttall Nancy Beiman Jon Arnold Sharleen Rayner James Dobos Vanessa Buttino Vintage Film Festival Patricia Nolan-Hall Rachel Beattie Jennifer Archer Janice Kaiman Andrew Van Maurik Robert Elliott & Christine Cosby Robert Poole Shraddha Pai

VOLUNTEER AND RAFFLE SPONSORS

Manning Canning, Nosh Balls, Vintage Film Festival

OUR FUNDRAISING PARTNER

Fox Theatre

TSFF SUPPORT

Through donations of tickets etc., TSFF supported the 2023 fundraising efforts of several organizations.

Toronto's First Post Office & Town of York Historical Society Silent Auction, March
Vintage Film Festival Silent Auction, October