How a small-town film festival showed me I could turn my passion into a career

In 2011, Oliver Skinner, then a 16-year-old film geek, attended a one-off small-town film festival called Picton Picturefest (which was organized by Peter Knegt, now a producer at CBC Arts). 10 years later, Skinner looks back on the event that helped him realize his film industry dreams.

It was a cross between a small-town film festival, a summer camp, a cinephile retreat, and a crash course in how to make a movie. If that idea sounds improbable even during normal times, well, it's virtually impossible to imagine happening today, as we continue to lift ourselves out of a life-altering pandemic. But exactly one decade ago, it was something that I actually got to experience — and it made me realize that it was possible for me to build a life and career in the world of film.

Before attending Picton Picturefest, one of the closest things I had to a friend in my hometown of London, Ontario, was a librarian at least 40 years my senior. My Friday after-school ritual involved bussing to the library, borrowing as many DVDs as I could at once, then spending the weekend bingeing old movies. I remember reading about how François Truffaut had rejected a popular French ad with the slogan: When you love life, you go to the movies. His response? "It's false! It's exactly the opposite: when you don't love life, or when life doesn't give you satisfaction, you go to the movies." To prove my point, all it had really taken was my librarian's throwaway comment about finding some random Criterion movie "quite heartbreaking" to feel like I had found the only other soul for 50 kilometres who spoke my language. I was 16 and clearly starved for companionship.

Aside from school and watching movies, I spent a lot of time behind my computer screen, poring over the lives of strangers. One day, I came across a blog called The Lost Boy, run by a film journalist in his mid-20s named Peter Knegt (who now works for CBC Arts). Although he was similarly from a Southern Ontario suburb, Peter now lived in a big city and worked professionally in film. The Lost Boy felt like a portal into a universe impossibly distant from the one I inhabited, where Peter's life as a movie lover didn't isolate him from the rest of the world — but rather opened him up to it. Most notably, he had written a saga about his time at Mark Cousins and Tilda Swinton's "A Pilgrimage," which reinvented the traditional film festival experience by having its attendees pull a mobile cinema through the Scottish Highlands. I read the story in awe.

One night while browsing The Lost Boy, I laid eyes on a new post that caught me off guard. It was an announcement that Peter and his friend Jennifer MacFarlane had decided to launch their own film festival and cinephile retreat based on his pivotal journey to "A Pilgrimage." It would take place in Prince Edward County, where the two friends had grown up together, only a few hours from where I lived. I had to go.

I promptly searched Peter's name on Facebook and composed a sentimental, rambling message detailing who I was and telling him that I really hoped to attend the inaugural Picton Picturefest. I gulped and clicked send, unable to know how an outpouring from an awkward 16-year-old would be received. Little did I know I was about to make some lifelong friends and discover my calling. In fact, when I look back on my life and career so far, so much of that passion was honed at Picton Picturefest — the experience that first taught me just how essential homegrown community events can be for connecting young people with art.

A few months later, I was in a minivan hurtling down Highway 401 toward Small Pond Arts, a farm-turned-artist-residence that would serve as the campgrounds for the fest. Beside me sat Derek, a relatively new friend of mine with whom I shared an affinity for getting high and watching Stanley Kubrick movies. When we pulled up and made our introductions to the 20-somethings running the camp and the half-dozen or so other young campers, I remember being instantly intimidated by how cool everybody appeared. And as we got to know each other playing games around the campfire, I found myself paralyzed by the familiar fear that I wouldn't belong, or that the juvenile humour that united Derek and I wouldn't translate at all in this new environment. Two worlds were colliding: the person I was to try to fit in with my new friend, and the person I wanted to become someday.

Picton Picturefest had two main components. The first was a full-fledged film festival that included multiple screenings across various venues in the surrounding area, all revolving around the theme of "community." At the same time, the young campers would learn to write, shoot, cut, and premiere a short film over the course of four days with the help of then-budding (and now established and award-winning) filmmakers Stephen Dunn and Pat Mills.

The first morning, the campers were shuttled to the Picton Public Library to collaboratively write the script. That evening, we made our way to Picton's historic Regent Theatre to squeeze into a screening of M Hulot's Holiday, which Tilda Swinton had nominated to be the opening night film based on how well its resort setting complemented our Picton backdrop. At the reception in the lobby afterward, I recall Pat Mills discussing the ideas for what would become his feature film Don't Talk to Irene, and Stephen Dunn recounting his exploits as a film student. Being in the presence of people who spoke about their aspirations so matter-of-factly was exhilarating at a time when my creative ideas had felt like secrets and fantasies.

Around the campfire that night, feeling a little less nervous with the help of a beer I had managed to sneak out of an unmonitored cooler, I spoke confidently about movies, my unremarkable life in the suburbs, and what I hoped to do with my future. I was introduced to Basil Tsiokos, a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival who had been a producer on The Canal Street Madam, one of the movies screening at Picturefest. For the sheltered kid I was, it felt surreal to suddenly find myself in the presence of a movie producer who lived in New York City. Surrounded by people with passions just like mine, I began to realize that my outsider status was something I'd made up inside my head.

For so long, I had immersed myself in movies because I preferred them to reality — but my experience at the festival, and all the friendships and opportunities it introduced to me, convinced me that my own life could be every bit as compelling as the greatest movies are.- Oliver Skinner

The next day, we shot our short film. Under Pat and Stephen's guidance, the campers had the opportunity to rotate through just about every role on a movie shoot. Then, following an evening screening of the cerebral mystery movie You Are Here, Derek and I stormed the film's director, Daniel Cockburn, eager to decode his work. Instead of recoiling from two teenagers loudly voicing their interpretations of his film straight to his face, Cockburn responded to Derek and I with enthusiasm and engagement. A couple of years later, when I got the opportunity to interview filmmakers in more professional contexts, I thought back fondly on that original interaction with Cockburn.

As the penultimate day arrived, our main goal was to assemble the footage we'd shot the day prior into what would become a carnivalesque horror made using the larger-than-life puppets we'd unearthed in the workshop of puppeteer Krista Dalby, who helped run Small Pond Arts. At one point, Derek and I decided to break away from the editing room to attend a screening of Clio Barnard's The Arbor inside a church, then wandered around the town of Picton, taking in the past few days and anticipating the return to our everyday lives. After so much time together, we were beginning to get on each other's nerves. As Derek cracked jokes and spoke offhandedly about the summer to come, I found myself unexpectedly emotional at the thought of parting ways with everyone I'd met and going back to the real world.

I collapsed onto the church steps and melodramatically buried my head in my hands. "You don't get it!" I screamed at Derek. "You don't understand how much this matters to me. I can't go back to London. I can't go back to my life before this." After a pause, Derek crouched beside me and put his hand on my shoulder.

We went back to the campsite after dark. In a barn packed with in-progress portraits and massive shadow puppets, our team of fellow filmmakers turned from a laptop, eager to show us the progress they'd made on our short that was set to premiere the coming day.

On the final day, we screened Cirque du Foret for an audience filled with friendly faces who, just a few days prior, had been total strangers. Basking in the warm reception the film had been met with, we all stood outside St. Andrew's Church, exchanging phone numbers and friend requests. I wasn't ready to lose touch with my new gang — most of all Peter and Jen, who had shown me a world much bigger than my own. (I'm pleased to report that we still keep in touch to this day.)

Although Picton Picturefest spanned less than a week, the feelings it generated stick with me to this day. When I arrived, my teenage life up until that point had been lived vicariously through movies. I possessed no social decorum or anything that remotely resembled a sense of fashion. I was immature and self-involved. For so long, I had immersed myself in movies because I preferred them to reality — but my experience at the festival, and all the friendships and opportunities it introduced to me, convinced me that my own life could be every bit as compelling as the greatest movies are.

I still have a letter I wrote to the organizers a few days after the festival, which I recently reread. It concluded:

"Before Picturefest, never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that I could associate the pinnacle of my cinematic experiences with a small shorefront town. But Peter and Jen achieved something very special here: the harmonious union of two communities. This was all thanks to a few days away from the hustle and bustle of ordinary life in the town of Picton, Ontario, which did not only for those days become a temporary residence, but with all sincerity, a home."

Looking back as I prepare to enter a graduate program in screenwriting and start a new job with a movie production company, I can't help but thank Picturefest for exposing my younger, more cynical self to a version of cinephilia premised on community, spontaneity, and adventure. As the pandemic subsides and in-person events become a possibility once again, I can only hope that the next generation will get the opportunity to experience something as magical as Picton Picturefest was for me.