Our Organization

Flash Frame Film & Video Network is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2001, and we are dedicated to advancing art production in Northwestern Ontario. We have an open-door policy and accept memberships from anyone in the community who may wish to join. 

Our members come from all ages, backgrounds and experience levels, and include professional and independent artists and filmmakers, students, and folks with a casual interest in film and media arts as an artistic and educational practice for the advancement and enrichment of the community. Members reflect the diversity in our community, and are composed of youths, elders, Francophones, BIPOC, newcomers to Canada, people with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQ+ peoples. All members live in the North. 

Flash Frame is a talent, labour, knowledge and equipment resource for its members’ creative and artistic undertakings. We endeavor to assist local and visiting producers who wish to use the local area for their productions. Flash Frame also functions as a collective production organization that produces, promotes, and distributes artistic works.

Our Mission

Northern Ontario artists live in a culturally diverse area where storytelling and oral traditions of knowledge sharing are being revived. Thunder Bay has a growing film industry and resources, technical services and a diverse set of skilled craftspeople, professional media artists and researchers.  

Flash Frame promotes ongoing participation in hands-on workshops or filmmaking projects and is integral in building and sustaining a robust mentoring culture that builds capacity in our community. Our workshops are an excellent launch pad for cross-cultural and multigenerational collaboration through exciting new mediums. Our workshops aim to bring together youth, emerging filmmakers and artists from Thunder Bay and Northern Ontario in an inclusive and stimulating environment that develops their skills. They are a continuation of the past 20 years of our current practice of fostering the media arts in Northwestern Ontario. Our past workshops engage local youth and emerging filmmakers and artists with interactive multimedia and new technology and provide new skills to theatre actors interested in working on screen. We use local mentors and technicians to promote collaboration and share skills, resources and knowledge. We record and stream our workshops so artists in the North can participate virtually or learn from the presentations. Our workshops are also a vehicle for cross-cultural collaboration and inclusion. 

We have to work extra hard to overcome the geographical challenges we face, which means more indigenous local production that makes the most of our local talent and resources. When we attract outside productions, we work hard to prepare local artists and technicians to ensure these productions’ success and to reinforce our local talent and skill base to foster future collaborations.