[4] Throughout its life, the festival saw various controversies around Losique's leadership, including uneven programming,[5] a marketing strategy that sometimes seemed more concerned with throwing barbs at TIFF than with actually building the MWFF's brand, and increasing financial irregularities.

[11] By 1985, Losique was already beginning to attract criticism for running the festival in an "authoritarian" and "Napoleonic" manner,[12] with programming driven disproportionately by his own personal taste in film rather than consideration for what would appeal to the general public.

[17] In 1991, for the first time, newspapers in Montreal began running front-page stories calling for Losique to step down and hand over leadership of the festival to a successor due to poor programming decisions and declining attendance.

[21] Subsequently, these two funding agencies announced that they would support a new international film festival, called the New Montreal FilmFest (FIFM), to be managed by Spectra Entertainment and headed by Daniel Langlois.

[22] The 2005 FIFM was not successful, and the event was discontinued;[24] as of July 2007, Losique's lawsuits were dropped, paving the way for a restoration of government funding.

The film — about Karla Homolka, a young woman who was convicted of manslaughter and who served twelve years in prison for her part in the kidnapping, sex enslavement, rapes and murders of teenage girls, including her own sister, in a case said to involve ephebophilia — was controversial in Canada, with many calling for its boycott throughout the country.

[28] In an interview with CTV News, Montreal Gazette entertainment columnist Bill Brownstein referred to Losique as having a "Napoleonic complex" and not "playing well with the other children" resulting in government and sponsors withdrawing their funding support.

Robert Everett-Green of The Globe and Mail noted that while an event like TIFF, with its strong programming team, could easily work around the health difficulties of a single programmer, the stated reason for the MWFF's cancellation effectively confirmed the longstanding charges that Losique ran the festival as a personal fiefdom rather than cultivating a team.

Prior to the beginning of each event, the festival's board of directors appointed the juries who held sole responsibility for choosing award winners.