Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT)

Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) is an artist-run charitable organization dedicated to facilitating excellence in the moving image through media arts education and production resources. LIFT exists to provide support and encouragement for independent filmmakers and artists through affordable access to production, post-production and exhibition equipment; professional and creative development; workshops and courses; commissioning and exhibitions; artist residencies; and a variety of other services. Founded in 1981 by a small collective, LIFT has since grown to become one of the foremost centres of its kind globally.

LIFT is a member-driven non-profit organization that provides affordable access to equipment, education and space for those who want to make films, out of a passion for, and commitment to, the practice of filmmaking.

LIFT is a not a designated Canadian learning institution, as outlined by the Government of Canada. Registration in LIFT Workshops cannot be used to support any immigration or Canadian Visa applications.

NEXT WEEK—The Latin American Media Arts Symposium (LAMAS) is a four-day gathering of artists, curators, filmmakers, scho...
10/08/2026

NEXT WEEK—The Latin American Media Arts Symposium (LAMAS) is a four-day gathering of artists, curators, filmmakers, scholars, and cultural workers dedicated to exploring the past, present, and future of Latin American and Latinx media arts in Canada. Presented by Southern Currents Film & Video Collective (organizers of the aluCine Latin Film & Media Arts Festival), LAMAS will take place in Toronto from October 14–17, 2026.
Details: https://alucinefestival.ca/LAMAS2026

LIFT co-presents "Echoes of Memory" at Latin American Media Arts Symposium (LAMAS)LIFT co-presents the "Echoes of Memory...
10/08/2026

LIFT co-presents "Echoes of Memory" at Latin American Media Arts Symposium (LAMAS)
LIFT co-presents the "Echoes of Memory: Counter-Narratives in Digital Media Arts" panel at the 2026 Latin American Media Arts Symposium (LAMAS).
Saturday, October 17, 2026
3:30 PM
837 Dundas Street West
Free Admission
Moderated by Victoria Carrasco
Panellists: Laura Acosta, Lucia Rojas, and Santiago Tavera ·
Details: https://lift.ca/programming-home/lift-co-presents-echoes-of-memory-at-latin-american-media-arts-symposium-lamas
CC: aluCine Latin Film & Media Arts Festival

LIFT announces Finnish Visiting Artist Charlotte ClermontToronto, October 7, 2026—The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers ...
10/07/2026

LIFT announces Finnish Visiting Artist Charlotte Clermont
Toronto, October 7, 2026—The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) is pleased to announce that Québec artist Charlotte Clermont, based in Helsinki, Finland, has joined us as a visiting artist from October 5, 2026 to December 31, 2026. She is the seventh resident in the residency program for alumni of the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki. This residency, which started in 2019 as a partnership between the Academy and the Saastamoisen säätiö - Saastamoinen Foundation, is designed to provide international opportunities for alumni in the form of residency grants to prestigious residencies in New York, Maastricht, London and Toronto.
With a background in analogue experimental film, Charlotte Clermont explores the temporal dimensions of how the body shapes, preserves, and creates what we perceive as reality, using film, sound and text. Drawing on materials from her immediate environment, she works upon the chemical sensitivity of film through various alterations, while leaving a large place to chance. Her work generally develops an inherent, autonomous, and symbolically encoded metalanguage. Her most recent film "du soleil, que ça existe," has been nominated by Nordic and Baltic Young Artist Award (2024) and has been exhibited at Filmverkstaden (Vaasa, 2025), Forum Box (Helsinki, 2026), and Photographic Gallery Hippolyte (Helsinki, 2026). Her work has been shown internationally in film festivals, such as International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands), Fracto (Germany), Künstlerhaus Bethanian (Germany), Festival des cinémas différents et expérimentaux de Paris (France), Edinburgh International Film Festival (Scotland), Festival ECRĀ (Brazil), 25th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czechia), Beijing International Short Film Festival (China), and Saigon Experimental Film Festival (Vietnam). She has been an artist in residence at Studio Kura (Japan, 2016), Signal Culture (United States, 2017), Shiro Oni (Japan, 2018), Archipelago Artist Residency in Korpo (Finland, 2022), Baltic Analog Lab (Latvia, 2024), Mustarinda (Finland, 2025), ÖRES (Finland, 2025), Copper Leg (Estonia, 2026) and Adélard (Canada, 2026). https://www.charlotteclermont.com
Charlotte Clermon'’s visit is made possible by the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki in partnership with the Saastamoinen Foundation.
Full Details:
https://lift.ca/programming-home/lift-announces-finnish-visiting-artist-charlotte-clermont
📸 by Renata Mohamed

LIFT’s 45th Anniversary Celebration! 🎂💐 to our 45th Anniversary Celebration which was held on Friday, August 14, 2026, ...
10/07/2026

LIFT’s 45th Anniversary Celebration! 🎂💐

to our 45th Anniversary Celebration which was held on Friday, August 14, 2026, downstairs at Owls Club.

Earlier this year on April 8, 2026, LIFT celebrated its 45th Anniversary. It’s exciting and humbling to reflect on the impact we have made over the years on the lives of independent filmmakers, whether it’s through our workshop program, our mentorships, our affordable rental rates for members, our community outreach programs, or our commissioning and production support projects.

Here are of pictures capturing an evening of music, karaoke, pool, darts, and good times. Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate this milestone in LIFT’s history!

📸 by Imogen J. Lister

Filmmakers Robert Beavers and Ute Aurand visited the LIFT office today, en route to one of their screenings in Toronto t...
10/06/2026

Filmmakers Robert Beavers and Ute Aurand visited the LIFT office today, en route to one of their screenings in Toronto this week!

(L-R) Robert Beavers, Ute Aurand, LIFT Executive Director Chris Kennedy and LIFT Deputy Director Renata Mohamed.

🎬🎉 LIFT's Fall 2026 New WorkshopsCheck out these upcoming new filmmaking workshops:Crafting Fear: The Business of Horror...
10/06/2026

🎬🎉 LIFT's Fall 2026 New Workshops
Check out these upcoming new filmmaking workshops:
Crafting Fear: The Business of Horror Filmmaking
In-person
Tuesday November 3
The Lens Tech Lab
In-person
Tuesday December 15
Visit https://lift.ca/workshops for full details and to register ASAP!

LIFT announces the 2026 BAICC Resident - Emiliano Reyes ColinaToronto, October 5, 2026—The Liaison of Independent Filmma...
10/06/2026

LIFT announces the 2026 BAICC Resident - Emiliano Reyes Colina
Toronto, October 5, 2026—The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) is pleased to welcome Mexican filmmaker Emiliano Reyes Colina, based in Spain, as the current resident in the tenth edition of the BAICC Residencias Artísticas Internacionales de Creacion Cinematográfica, a collaboration between the (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico, Acción Cultural Española, AC/E and LIFT. The residency supports the making of a new analogue film-based work by creators born or living in Spain. The work made in the residency will premiere at the next iteration of the S8 Film Festival, held in June 2027 in A Coruña, Spain.
Reyes Colina is in town until the end of October to work on his project “The Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducting Tchaikovsky (1945)”. This project is articulated around structuralist principles and the reinterpretation of found footage: a piece shot on 16mm film in Toronto in 1945. It is a technically sophisticated, innovative, and refreshing project that also embraces visual abstraction and tactile intervention. The film will transmute into an abstract choreography of rhythmic light, rubbed grain, and kinetic textures, where the visual collapse of the image accompanies the dramatic intensity of Tchaikovsky’s composition.
The result of this residency—conceived as a multi-screen installation featuring three 16mm projectors—will have its world premiere during the upcoming (S8) 18th Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico in June 2027, in A Coruña.
Emiliano Reyes Colina's residency is made possible in part through support from (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico and the Acción Cultural Española (AC/E).
Full details can be found online at https://lift.ca/programming-home/lift-announces-the-2026-baicc-resident-emiliano-reyes-colina
📸 by Renata Mohamed

Sep 22—YYZ Artists' Outlet is facing an immediate financial crisis, and they need your support right now. They were rece...
10/05/2026

Sep 22—YYZ Artists' Outlet is facing an immediate financial crisis, and they need your support right now. They were recently notified that our application for the Ontario Arts Council three-year operating grant was unsuccessful due to new funding criteria prioritizing short-term economic metrics. Losing this core operational funding places YYZ in immediate jeopardy.
Details: https://yyzartistsoutlet.org/news/urgent-yyz-artists-outlet-is-at-risk-of-closing-we-need-your-help-today .
Details: https://www.instagram.com/p/DdmJRpGESfe
YYZ Artists’ Outlet is excited to announce thier online 50/50 fundraiser! Grab your tickets now! 5 tickets for $20 and the more you buy, the greater your chances of winning! Purchase tickets at https://rafflebox.ca/raffle/yyz-artists-outlet

to our Summer 2026 Hand Processing Black and White Film workshop, lead by Sandy McLennan on Saturday, August 15, 2026....
10/05/2026

to our Summer 2026 Hand Processing Black and White Film workshop, lead by Sandy McLennan on Saturday, August 15, 2026.
In this introduction to photochemical image-making, participants learnt about hand processing and darkroom practices and how light energy and chemistry work to create images. They exposed photograms on short clips of 16mm high contrast black and white motion picture film stock, rendering them as both negative and reversal (positive) images.
Visit https://www.instagram.com/p/DeIBk87j3YW for more pictures!
Keep an eye out for future sessions of this workshop! All inquiries about upcoming workshops should be directly emailed to [email protected]

LIFT’s 45th Anniversary Celebration! 🎂💐 to our 45th Anniversary Celebration which was held on Friday, August 14, 2026, ...
10/03/2026

LIFT’s 45th Anniversary Celebration! 🎂💐

to our 45th Anniversary Celebration which was held on Friday, August 14, 2026, downstairs at Owls Club.

Earlier this year on April 8, 2026, LIFT celebrated its 45th Anniversary. It’s exciting and humbling to reflect on the impact we have made over the years on the lives of independent filmmakers, whether it’s through our workshop program, our mentorships, our affordable rental rates for members, our community outreach programs, or our commissioning and production support projects.

Here are the first batch of pictures capturing an evening of music, karaoke, pool, darts, and good times. Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate this milestone in LIFT’s history!

📸 by Imogen J. Lister

Address

1137 Dupont Street
Toronto, ON
M6H 2A3

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm

Telephone

+14165886444

Website

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