Prince Edward County does not get mentioned enough, I don’t even know if any film related happenings go on out there. But it looks like something will be happening next month that is film-related. I’m talking about their very first film festival, the County Adaptation Film Festival, which hosted a preview event in Picton, Ontario at the Regent Theatre on May 4th. The preview event had a special gala screening of the actual PEC’s CAFF which will be happening in September. Consider it a little preview. That particular night on May 4, there was a screening of a film The Peasants by Hugh and DK Welchman. Following that is a chance for the audience to think about the art of adaptation. Why is that? Because The Peasants is an adaptation the novel CHŁOPI by Władysław Reymont, a Nobel-Prize winning story about life in in a village of Lipce where he spent his time learning about country life while he worked on a railway all the livelong day. Yeah, I had to say that. The whole film is made of oil paintings by over 200 artists in 4 different studios during 5 years of work. The studios were situated in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Serbia. The original film was done with actors, then artists painted the frames and animators put all the animation frames together. There will be actual paintings from behind the scenes featured at the preview event and Hugh Welchman will introduce the film with a virtual welcome and then afterwards an extremely involved member of the crew Monika Folkierska-Zukowska will participate afterwards in a conversation. A great start to a great festival, but prepare for the festival if you’re in the Ontario area, check out some more event details here, and maybe make plans to visit Prince Edward County in September. You’ll probably get more than just a film festival experience.
