A downtown Windsor alley is now a beautiful public space thanks to the Windsor International Film Festival.
Now officially dubbed WIFF Alley, the space on University Avenue West across from the Phog lounge features string lighting and film inspired murals.
Mural in WIFF Alley done by local artist Denial, November 1, 2019. (Photo by Maureen Revait)
WIFF Executive Director Vincent Georgie says they wanted to give something back to downtown in honour of their 15th anniversary.
"Back when we added the Chrysler Theatre to WIFF our audience was telling us 'oh it's so fantastic because you go from the Capitol Theatre and you cut through WIFF alley and go to the Chrysler Theatre and back and forth,' it sort of got us thinking, ok, if that's turning into something and our audience is using it that way could we actually take them up on that offer and do something permanent with that?" said WIFF Executive Director Vincent Georgie.
Georgie says planning got underway around eight months ago and it was easy to get surrounding downtown businesses on board.
The 15th annual WIFF gets underway Friday and features 277 showings at the Capitol and Chrysler Theatres downtown. The festival runs 10 days.
"It's been a very busy pre-sale which has been great. Audiences have been huge this morning, we've had about 1500 students coming in from all over southwestern Ontario to see films. The hotels are really booked up this weekend with all sorts of tourists coming in so it's going to be a very busy, exciting festival. But we have tickets still available for everything," said Georgie.
Georgie estimates pre-sales are up about 15 per cent from previous years.
