Since its launch in 2020, we were extremely proud of the online festival. However, in the past several years, we have experienced severe amounts of stress and burnout in the organising team. As a 100% volunteer-run organisation, we found ourselves facing the reality that something had to change in order to make the festival manageable with the resources we have available.
The post-COVID landscape presented unique challenges. Securing permits for online screenings, navigating audience restrictions, and dealing with geographical limitations became increasingly complex. In 2022, we made the decision to scale down the online festival, but it continued to heavily impact our work processes. Moreover, the demands of organising both an online and physical festival simultaneously, along with the promotional efforts required post-physical edition, proved to be overwhelming for our volunteer team.
In light of these challenges, we've had to make some organisational changes and structural adjustments within the group, as well as modifications to our program, which includes the online festival.
We want to emphasise that this was a difficult decision, and we take responsibility for the accessibility barriers it has reinforced for some of our community members. We also acknowledge that we’ve been called on to look into alternative ways to make the festival more accessible to our community members with disabilities that do not put our well-being in jeopardy. We will be discussing this at our evaluation which informs the 2024 festival and organising team.
