Sunday night was the biggest and best event in our F&F Film Fest. More than just a movie screening, this was a car culture event stretched out over 5 hours and 2 towns. By the end of it, we had our biggest turnout to an event, plus over $1,000 in charitable donations collected.
The seasonally-decorated Spencer Smith Park in Burlington, west of Toronto, was the starting point for our Christmas Car Cruise. Vehicles covered in Christmas lights were invited to convoy along Lakeshore Blvd to the cinema. The park was also the location of the Burlington Festival of Lights with illuminated installations dotting the shoreline, and hundreds of spectators enjoying the show.
Nose to tail, the Christmas convoy made the 20 km trip to the Film.ca Cinemas in neighboring Oakville. Upon arrival at the cinema, another 10-15 cars decorated for the meet-up were already there waiting. Even the cinema had been covered in lights for the Christmas season. The parking lot looked less like the Fast & Furious and more like the Santa Claus Parade.
There were some high-dollar BMWs and rare Nissan 240SX drift cars at the event, but they didn’t capture the attention they normally would. This event was about the spirit of Christmas, regardless of whether the owner spent big bucks on their displays, or just used left over decorations from their tree.
A welcome sight for the Demaras family was the 2003 Chevy Tracker originally purchased by Chris (now on its 4th owner) still on the road an looking like a million bucks.
With temperatures well below zero, smart people went into the movie theatre early, rather than hanging out in the parking lot! Young Michelle was in charge of tickets, and collected hundreds of dollars in donations for charity partner ROWW through sale of gingerbread man cookies.
The third installment of the Fast Film Fest included cartoon “Tokyo Mater” a 2008 Pixar short, plus the feature presentation of “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift” the 2006 motion picture by director Justin Lin. The highly influential movie helped spread JDM car culture globally, and is loved and hated in equal measure by different factions of the F&F4Life crowd.
After the movie, event organizers Daniel and Chris handed out the hardware. Trophies to the Top 3 Christmas Cars went to a Mini Cooper covered in 1,000 LED lights, a gift-wrapped Mitsubishi Gallant, and a Chevy Tracker with a wreath on the spare and a cargo rack full of light.
The raffle prize winner was a young man named Nelfils who took home a Tokyo Drift poster, a Japanese license plate, a ‘Movie Night for Two’ package from Film.ca Cinema, and a ride in the “Drift Taxi” with Canada’s own drift king ‘Rolo’ at a CSCS Racing event in 2026.
What a great moment during the season of giving!
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