The biggest little film fest
Short films have a long impact thanks to Yorkton's unique film and video festival
Sheila Thistlethwaite - May 21, 2007
OK, you film buffs: what do the Oscars, Emmys and Genies have in common with Yorkton, Sask.? If you answered that Yorkton is home to the Canadian film industry's most prestigious awards for films and videos under an hour long, you're savvier than most people. But did you also know that the Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival is the longest-running film festival of its kind in North America?
Hundreds of Canadian filmmakers will converge in Yorkton, population 17,000, to honour excellence in Canadian film, May 24-27. Two legendary figures of Canadian cinema--actor, writer and director Gordon Pinsent and 50-year veteran filmmaker Allan King, winner at Cannes--will be on hand for the 60th anniversary celebrations. Yes, there will be parties and screenings and workshops and a gala awards night, but, more than that, participants will pitch their dream projects to national producers. And winners of the Golden Sheaf awards will go home with highly coveted recognition from their peers. Even being nominated for a Golden Sheaf Award carries heavy weight within the industry, says the festival's executive director, Fay Kowal. With such recognition, your talents will be in greater demand from that moment onward.
Last year's best-of-Saskatchewan award-winner, Jayden Soroka, says, "It was a huge kick-start in the industry. It gave me the credibility I needed while starting my own film company [306 Productions in Regina]. I received thousands of dollars' worth of free publicity and the award is well known within the industry, so I'm getting offers from other producers to direct and edit."
Vancouver filmmaker Ana Valine says winning the best emerging filmmaker and best fiction director awards "opened a lot of doors." Her Alice & Bastard has since won at other competitions in Spain and North America. She says the casual atmosphere at Yorkton makes everybody more approachable. "There's a high calibre of people, but the established film people take it as seriously as the emerging ones do." As a result of a pitching session at last year's festival, Telefilm Canada accepted Valine's latest project.
So the festival is a big deal, both to the industry and to Yorktonites. Local volunteers help stage the festival, and most of the public attending events and watching movies at the mini-cinema viewing stations in the cultural centre come from the area. Mayor Chris Wyatt says the benefits go beyond economic: "It puts the city on a national level for film festivals. Not many cities this size get such widespread attention." City council recently increased its partnership support from $10,000 to $15,000 a year, as testimony to its belief in the festival's contribution to the community's vitality.
The enthusiasm stretches back to 1947, when citizens welcomed National Film Board field officer James Lysyshyn's proposal for an international documentary film festival. Entries from around the world poured in for the first event in 1950. By 1978, the festival was receiving so many entries, organizers took it from a biennial to an annual event. Now a national festival, 368 entries arrived this year from cities as distant as Halifax, Vancouver and Dawson City. Most are documentaries (there are nine categories of docs), followed by a high percentage of dramas, then comedies. Awards are presented in 19 genre categories, and 16 craft categories--for such things as best sound--and for the best Saskatchewan-made film.
Film professionals across Canada choose the nominees, then the heads of the nine juries meet in Yorkton to select the winners. "It's a thoughtful, rigorous jury system," says Joe MacDonald, a Gemini and Peabody award-winning documentary producer at the NFB Prairie Centre. "This is the only competitive bilingual festival in Canada for films under one hour, and the awards carry significance because they have a long legacy of honouring films that have been important." Numerous Yorkton winners have later won nominations and awards from the Academy Awards and other prominent film events.
MacDonald's work has taken him to festivals across western Canada, including Yorkton's, for the past 22 years. Eight years ago, he joined Yorkton's advisory board. "The Yorkton festival allows people to really enjoy themselves," he says. "It's more about relationship-building than deal-making. And that fits perfectly with the festival's founding spirit of working together in co-operation on the Prairies."