MFF TEMPORARILY SUSPENDING OPERATIONS

After more than a decade of proudly bringing the best of local, Canadian, and international film to Milton audiences, the Milton Film Festival has made the difficult decision to temporarily suspend operations starting this November, and to cancel all programming including the January 2025 Festival. This temporary hiatus is due to a serious financial crisis that has left the organisation without the financial resources and capacity to continue in a fiscally responsible manner. 

The organisers still plan to hold some stand-alone film screenings at Country Heritage Park in the summer and fall, thanks to a generous grant from the Town of Milton Community Fund, and hope to be able to bring back the main January festival in the upcoming years.

Since it first began in 2014, the Milton Film Festival has operated ‘in the black’, covering all expenses through ticket sales and the generous support of their sponsorship and granting partners, as well as accumulating a healthy reserve fund. However, in the two years since the  return to in-person theatrical screenings following the COVID-19 pandemic, attendance has dropped to about a third of previous levels. This is a situation that is being experienced industry-wide, and many other film festivals, large and small, have been struggling to rebuild audiences and participation..

The drastic reduction in attendance and ticket revenue has been accompanied by a significant increase in costs at the festival’s venue, the FirstOntario Arts Centre Milton – including ticketing fees that have more than doubled since 2020, and at the January 2024 Festival accounted for nearly a third of the price of every ticket sold. In addition to venue costs, film licensing fees and other festival-related expenses have also gone up substantially.

The resulting deficit has left the Milton Film Festival with no financial reserves and made it impossible to continue in 2025 without putting the organisation at significant financial risk.

It is hoped that in the coming years, movie audiences will start returning to theatres in greater numbers, and that alternative, stable sources of revenue can be secured to bring the Milton Film Festival back to financial viability. To that end, the Milton Film Festival is welcoming pledges of financial support from business and community leaders who support the arts in Milton. These pledges will allow the Festival to plan for the future and continue its legacy as one of the Town’s most significant annual cultural events.

The Milton Film Festival is also actively recruiting new members to help lead the organisation into the future, to support its efforts to be resilient, and to promote the Milton Film Festival’s reputation as a leading cultural event in Milton.

The Milton Film Festival organisers would like to thank the many, many people who have supported the Milton Film Festival over the past decade, including our generous sponsors, our current and former board members and volunteers, our talented filmmakers, and most especially our loyal audience members who have stuck with us year after year, from our first festival through the pandemic and beyond. We hope to see you at the movies again soon.

The Milton Film Festival Board of Directors and Organizing Committee:

Mishal Naseer
Jennifer Smith
Mira Nasser
Rubina Ali
Wendy Donnan
Jasmin Goode
Katie Pearce