Film Festival INFO
A short film festival inspiring transformative mental health conversations. Live events every Thursday in June. Free to attend.
Festival FAQ
Voices With Impact is a hybrid short film festival that celebrates underrepresented stories of mental health. Each year 10 new short films are produced and premiered at the global festival in a month of events centered around art, filmmaking, and mental health.
When and where is VWI?
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June! VWI takes place throughout the month of June.
Every Thursday evening there is a live event, and on-demand programs are available from June 1-30.
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VWI is a hybrid festival, meaning there are in-person and online elements.
We'll have in-person events in San Francisco on June 6 and Vancouver on June 27.
Both of the in-person events are live-streamed so you can watch them from anywhere in the world.
We'll have global online discussions online on June 13 and June 20.
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Throughout the month you will be able to watch on-demand content through our festival player.
What can I expect from the festival?
VWI uses the power of short film to start transformative mental health conversations. It's a pretty standard film festival in the sense that you just get to watch a lot of amazing films, but we have a good focus on making sure we talk about those films together after we've seen them.
Film
You can expect lots of incredible independent short films with a huge range in style. We have everything from documentary to experimental animation. The 10 films made this year and many from our film archive will screen across the month.
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Conversation
The films will inspire filmmaker panels, discussions with mental health professionals and with our audience. You are welcome to come and join the conversation, be that quietly or loudly, you are all welcome. All live events will have a panel, Q&A or discussion element. We do this to ensure we highlight and contextualize the mental health content of our films.
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Community
The in-person events leave lots of space to make connection with the filmmakers, other creatives, mental health advocates and other audience members. Our online events are based on audience participation and encourage conversation through public chat spaces to make connections and have important conversation. Attending any of the in-person, live, or on-demand events mean you will be added to our VWI community and will be invited to live events throughout the year.
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Not only do we connect you to other participants, but we also connect you to mental health organizations with resource packs and guest speakers.
How much are tickets?
VWI is free!! No catch, in-person, online, on-demand, everything is free.
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We do require you though to give up your seat (in-person or online) if you can't make it.
We have waiting lists and no shows mean other people miss out.
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If you would like to support us in covering our costs for our on-demand platform and our venue costs you can donate through an email you'll receive as part of your ticket confirmation or our festival platform.
How do I get tickets or passes?
You can select and reserve your free tickets through our Eventbrite Page.
When on demand content becomes available a link will be available on this page.
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Sign up here to make sure you don't miss out.
If you have a ticket but cannot attend you must contact us to release your space.
Many events are capped and no-shows mean that other people on waiting lists miss out.
Is there any mental health support during the festival?
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There will be active listeners available during each live event, and we'll be directing you to mental health resources throughout the festival. Our Active Listeners are working in an active listening capacity only, not as therapists.
Is the festival the same as the production grant, what's the difference?
Voices With Impact is a production grant and a film festival. The grant project starts in August when the request for proposals is released and finishes in April when the films are completed. The festival takes place throughout June.
The best way to think of it is that we work with our 10 grant funds recipients to create their films and then we share them with the world at our festival.
What are the themes for Voices With Impact and how are they chosen?
Through the Voices With Impact production grant, VWI focuses on 2 mental health themes each year. These are chosen based on feedback from partner schools, colleges and universities that we work with throughout the year. The themes for 2024 are Serious Mental Illness and Cliques & Echo Chambers.
How is VWI global?
The film grant is open to proposals from all around the world. The film festival is accessible globally too with filmmakers, speakers, and performers from all over the world.
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