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The Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, veritable adulthood. Approximately 80 years separate the birth of the cinema and the founding of the Montreal World Film Festival. The Festival has therefore been a witness: a witness to the stylistic and technological evolution of the 7th art over the past quarter century, but also a witness in the more literal sense of the term. An art that can at once educate, analyze, excite, inspire fantasy, move to laughter or tears, project itself into the future or the past, is, par excellence, the memory and imagination of the world.

Since its inception, the Montreal World Film Festival has been open to all tendencies of the cinema worldwide. By its second year it had become competitive as recognized by the FIAPF (the international federation of film producers associations). By its second year, as well, it had included a special section for Latin American films in order to showcase films from below the American-Mexican border. At the same time, the Festival adopted the practice of spotlighting the cinema of a different country each year and over the years we have presented recent films from a wide variety of countries, including Japan, France, Italy, the United States, Germany, Spain, Australia, Great Britain, Hungary, India, China, the Scandinavian countries, Turkey, Israel, Iran, Korea, Yugoslavia (when it was still intact), the Soviet Union and Russia (after the collapse of the USSR).

The Festival has also been witness to its time in its presentation of Latin American films, observing the political and economic tribulations that many of these countries have undergone over the past 25 years. Political and sometimes economic censorship have fettered some cineastes while others have been stimulated by the turmoil and, astonishingly, great films have come out of countries where censorship is a constant presence.

Asia has always been well represented. The Montreal World Film Festival was the first to present a Chinese film in competition, back at the beginning, when the Chinese cinema was rising from its ashes after the destruction of the Chinese film industry during the Cultural Revolution. Japan has been present right from the very start of the Festival in 1977, when its was the focus cinema. India, another Asian country with a large and diverse production, has also had a special place in the Festival's annual programming.

Over the years, we have become accustomed to the variety of talents, the richness of inspiration and the stylistic audacity of filmmakers of all origins. Much of what was best in world cinema over the past quarter century flickered across the Festival's screens. The notion of the cinematic "author" and that of the "independent" cinema are probably more in evidence at the Montreal festival than anywhere else in the world. It is these notions that have changed our way of appreciating films.

Has the notion of "authorship" become established? Doubtful when a quick glance shows that most of box office hits are commercial "products" destined for mass consumption. But when a "film d'auteur" becomes a commercial success, everyone is happy.

What the films shown have had in common over the last 24 years is that they were well received when they were presented at the Festival. The choice was very large and, regretfully, we had to be selective. Many of the Canadian and Quebec films have gone on to enlarge our collective imagination and the Festival is happy to have given them a showcase. It is this ability to display the potential of filmmakers and cinemas from around the world, without bias or prejudgement, that is the Festival's greatest achievement. It is this openness and generosity of spirit that has earned the respect of the public and the filmmakers, and their enduring loyalty. It is in this spirit that the Festival will carry on.