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14th Dawson City International Short Film Festival Wraps

Don Hertzfeldt’s animation It’s Such a Beautiful Day was voted the Yukon Brewing Audience Choice Award.

It was a packed house as Dawson film fest goers reconvened in the ODD Fellows Hall for the final screenings of the weekend. The concluding slate of films did help provide the Big Finish as the segment was titled, and included one of the eventual prize winners. To provide symmetry, the final screening of the DCISFF was a short film by Dawson filmmaker Lulu Keating, whose full-length feature opened the festival four days earlier.

The Man who live on his Bike by Guillaume Blanchet was voted the Lodestar Award for best Canadian or Intrenational entry.

While the judges deliberated and final audience votes were tallied, a draw for door prizes kept the crowd entertained, and then it was time to announce the winners. The Lodestar Award for Best Canadian or International Film went to Guillaume Blanchet‘s whimsical and yet mesmerizing The Man Who Lived On His Bike, while recipient of the Yukon Brewing Audience Favorite Award was It’s Such a Beautiful Day, the poignant conclusion of Don Hertzfeldt‘s epic animated trilogy.

Traolach Ó Murchú’s sensitive film Gordie won the MITY (Made in the Yukon) Award

The MITY (Made in the Yukon Award) went to Gordie, a hard-hitting memoir of child abuse by Traolach Ó Murchú. The 2^nd Prize was given to Walks Like, a film by Arlin McFarlane (based on a story by Ivan Coyote).

Karen MacKay won the MITY Emerging Artist Award for Launching of the George Black Ferry

In the Emerging Artist Category, Karen MacKay‘s Launching of the George Black Ferry won the first prize, while Andrée Belanger‘s animated film Tous ce que les homes savent (Everything Humans Know) was the Runner Up.

The MITY Youth Award went to the animated short Direct Wind by Jessica Smith.

Jessica Smith of Old Crow won the MITY Youth Award for her animated short Direct Wind. The CBC North PSA Contest was won by Ross Burnet.

Volunteers and organizers were then finally able to relax at an after party, which went well into the night. It was a well-earned reward for all the months of hard work which garnered the biggest prize of all for those involved — another Dawson City International Short Film Festival in the can, with the applause still ringing in their ears.

The festival (presented by the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture with Yukon Energy), had a steady stream of viewers throughout all the screenings and overflowing workshops given by festival guests, Lulu Keating, Roslyn Muir, Michelle Latimer  and Van Cooper.

Special mention and thanks have to go to the hoards of volunteers who make this event possible (including the Dawson City Fire Department for flipping the burgers!), to the filmmakers for sharing their work with us, and to all the people who came in from the beautiful spring air to watch films!

See you next year!

 

The DCISFF thanks it’s funders and sponsors:
Yukon Tourism and Culture, The Canada Council for the Arts, Yukon Film and Sound Commission, Yukon Energy, CBC North, Canadian Heritage, Air North, Klondike Visitors Association, NFVIA,  Yukon School of Visual Arts, Yukon Film Society, Yukon News, Harper Street Publishing, Yukon Brewing, Tr’ondek Hwech’in, Downtown Hotel, City of Dawson, KlondikeRush.com, Harvey Wallbanger, Bombay Peggy’s, Trans North Helicopters,  Arctic Star Printing, Bonanza Market, Back Alley Pizza and The Billy Gost Pub, Dawson City General Store.

Taking It To The Streets

Dawson’s Film Fest went outside the box today, holding its traditional outdoor Street BBQ as part of closing activities. Festival goers and participants alike were able to take over Princess Street at Second Ave. and chow down on some delicious burgers and smokies. Appropriately enough, the flame broiling was provided by members of the Dawson City Volunteer fire department, with chief Jim Regimbal himself at the helm.

Festival goers line up to get their BBQed chow served to them by the Dawson City Volunteer Fire Department.

There was live music for the folks on the street too, as the barbeque saw the debut of Dawson’s newest musical group, Drea and the Naysayers. The ensemble played to an enthusiastic crowd, and although the sunshine and warmth that had graced us earlier in the day had abated somewhat by then, the overcast skies and cooler temperatures did not dampen the enthusiasm of the onlookers. Appropriately fed and fêted, the festival crowd then filed back to the ODD Fellows Hall at KIAC for the final screenings of the DCISFF, followed by the concluding Awards ceremony.

Drea and the Naysayers entertain the Film Fest Street BBQ crowd as they make their Dawson debut.

Blog post by Dan Dowhal, Writer at Large.

Out of the Cold Warms the Audience

EDZIZA by Lee Carruthers follows two people and a dog on an arduous hike in the B.C. wilderness

The Sunday 1 p.m. Emerging Artists line up, titled Out of the Cold,  was definitely one of the highlights of the Dawson Film Fest weekend. The matinee screening played to a packed house — which was to be expected since so many of the filmmakers were actually in attendance, and locals had turned out to support their friends and neighbours. Most entries were Yukon based, with some stemming from a territorial media training program, while some came out of the DCISFF’s annual 48 Hour Film Competition.

Considering there were 17 different films in the line-up, you would naturally expect a wide variety in subject matter and artistic approach, and this year’s Emerging Artists (thus categorized because they have completed/submitted three or fewer films) certainly

Animated short TOUS CE QUE LES HOMES SAVENT
(Everything Humans Know) by Andrée Bélanger examines the relationship between humans and animals.

delivered in that respect. Many examined aspects of Yukon life, including the annual launching of the George Black Ferry in Dawson, a look at Klondike gardening, a snowshoeing trip, a day in the life of claim stakers, and a bushwoman relating how she built her dream home. There was also humour, philosophizing, a humanitarian documentary, storytelling (traditional and otherwise), visualized poems, art pieces, travelogues, and experimental films. All in all, it was a very diverse and creative line-up, and the enthusiastic audience was not shy in showing its appreciation.

RUNNING WITH PAPER by Helen O’Connor shows the filmmaker’s surreal run through the forest wearing nothing but paper.

This is arguably the single greatest strength of the Dawson City International Short Film Festival. Although the festival’s reputation has spread far and wide, and the DCISFF now gets submissions from across the planet, the fest also serves as a stimulant and incubator for homegrown talent, and some of the best and most poignant work comes from right in our own backyard. Kudos to all the filmmakers, for providing such an admirable outburst of creativity, and a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon of viewing.

Blog post contributed by Dan Dowhal, Writer-at-Large.

Cold Cuts Video Festival Debuts as Extension to Dawson Film Fest

On top of the wide selection of  quality short films (from around the Yukon and around the planet) for which the Dawson City International Short Film Festival has come to be known, this year there will be an innovative new addition to the line-up. The inaugural Cold Cuts Video Festival has also been incorporated into the event, adding a whole new artistic and experiential dimension. The exhibition was officially launched at an opening reception earlier today at the gallery space at the Yukon School of the Visual Arts (SOVA) and runs through the duration of the film fest weekend.

Cold Cuts Video Festival curator and creator Nicole Rayburn addresses the crowd at the exhibition’s opening reception at the Yukon School of the Visual Arts gallery.

Cold Cuts is an exhibition of video works by contemporary Canadian artists, and aims to push the artistic envelop of the DCISFF’s offerings by incorporating more nontraditional or experimental time-based media productions. There are eight videos being shown as installations in two different locations during the video festival — three at KIAC’s ODD Fellow Ballroom, and five at the SOVA campus. Offerings vary from the satirical to the sublime to the socio-political, but all are interesting and thought-provoking examples of art as video.

The Cold Cuts Video Festival is the brainchild of SOVA instructor Nicole Rayburn, who curated the selections, and nursed the project from concept to fruition, with financial assistance from SOVA, KIAC, and the Yukon Arts Fund. Rayburn sees Cold Cuts as a natural extension to the main film festival, and a way for attendees to experience more experimental, artistic pieces.

Thematically, the videos installed at SOVA look at how the artists’ intersect bodily with their environment, while those at KIAC deal more with the “bodily intersection with space from the point of view of the camera, thereby offering the viewer a perspective more entangled with the camera.”

SOVA Director Curtis Collins was pleased with the successful launch of Cold Cuts, not only as a performance-oriented gallery-based art exhibit, which naturally fits into the School’s current focus, but also because of the video festival’s longer-term potential in helping to add a foundation year for student filmmakers to SOVA’s mission and curriculum.

After the reception, Film Fest creators, organizers, volunteers, and festival goers mingled at a social event at The Billy Goat Restaurant, networking, schmoozing, and generally sharing the palpable buzz about the screenings that were due to start later in the evening.

Blog post contributed by Dan Dowhal, Writer-at-Large. Danny is a Toronto-born author and digital media producer who first came to the Yukon as a Berton House Writer-In-Residence. His novels include Skyfisher and Flam Grub. He now makes his home in Dawson City.

Dawson City International Short Film Festival guests, attendees, and participants mix and mingle at The Billy Goat Tavern.

“It’s Stuck.”

I received a lovely email from my aunt Marg this morning, enquiring if I would be at my parents’ house on Salt Spring Island for Easter weekend. And while, indeed, my parents’ place on the island has such charms as green grass, adorable lambs and (of course) my lovely parents, there is absolutely nowhere else in the world I would rather spend Easter weekend than in Dawson City.

Adorable sheep and green grass–two things Dawson City definitely does not have in March!

Because while it is indeed Easter weekend, it is also Film Fest weekend, and Film Fest weekend in Dawson City is the best weekend of the year.

Things kicked off last night with the screening of Lucille’s Ball, a feature-length film made by local filmmaker Lulu Keating. It’s a wonderful film–very funny, but also meaningful and honest–and I hope that someday soon Hollywood invites Lulu down there to show them how it’s done (although if Lulu ever leaves Dawson City, she will be so greatly missed). I particularly enjoyed how Lulu approaches relationships in the film; while Hollywood and other traditional/mainstream sources of storytelling often represent romance and romantic relationships as a goal to be achieved with a dramatic kiss, Lucille’s Ball speaks to the way that successful relationships are processes that require negotiation. For all that the look of the film is highly stylized–incorporating animation sequences and an innovative use of studio space–it ends up feeling more real than many conventional romantic comedies.

In the Q&A following the screening, Lulu showed how her funny and charming film is really just an extension of her funny and charming self. While I am not going to explain to you what was stuck where–you’re just going to have to watch the movie–her demonstration of a five minute casting session with willing victim Victor Ghizaru (whose film Aurelia is closes the 9:30 Into the Night screening on Saturday) is a moment that will live on in film fest history. (“It’s stuck. It’s stuck? It’s stuck… It’s stuck!?!”)

What Dawson does have plenty of in March is cold, snow and dogsledding. The Percy DeWolfe Memorial Mail Race kicked off Thursday morning. Also movies–so many movies!

There is so much to look forward to this weekend. I will be repeating the strange endurance feat I undertook last year, and will be attending every single screening and watching every single film. While no doubt at some point I will feel like my eyeballs are bleeding, I know it will be absolutely worth it.

Kit Hepburn explores various forms of visual art including printmaking, drawing and sculpture, and creates short stop-motion animations. Her love for the Dawson City International Short Film Festival will never die. Follow her on Twitter @KathrynJHepburn for on-the-spot updates.

Meet the Commish Reception Launches Festival

Lucille’s Ball Feature is Film Fest’s First Screening

The 2013 edition of the Dawson City International Short Film Festival has officially kicked off. While there had been a flurry of noticeable activity all week long as a cadre of volunteers, shepherded by Fest producer Dan Sokolowski, scrambled to finish last-minute preparations, everything became the real deal at 6 p.m. this evening when the cork was popped on the opening reception.

Presented by KIAC (the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture) along with Yukon Energy, the DCISFF has been an Easter weekend tradition since 2000, and is notable for being among the most northern film festivals in the world. It is a weekend of great films, enthusiastic viewers, interesting guests, interactive workshops, and fun social events.

Yukon Film and Sound Commissioner Nova Alberts and Dawson City Mayor Wayne Potoroka at the opening reception of the 14th Annual Dawson City International Short Film festival.

The guest of honour at the inaugural soirée was newly minted Yukon Film and Sound Commissioner Nova Alberts, and indeed the event was titled Meet the Commish. Alberts mingled with partygoers and local luminaries at the ODD Fellows Hall, and shared some ideas for bolstering the interactive digital media industry in the Yukon. She comes here following a tenure with the Saskatchewan Motion Picture Industry Association (SMPIA) focusing on advocacy, communications, and professional development for the media production industry in Saskatchewan.  Prior to her work at SMPIA, Nova spent over 12 years producing a wide range of television programming that collectively has aired in over 175 countries.

Afterwards, at 7:30 p.m. the first screening of the festival took place. It was the much-anticipated Lucille’s Ball, a full-length feature written and directed by Dawson’s own Lulu Keating. The film is a moving and quirky drama depicting the personal odyssey of the protagonist, Lucille, during the 1970s, as she makes the full circle from “sexual miscreant to mother without a guidebook.” Rear-projected location stand-in shots and interspersed animated sequences gave the film a distinctive stylized look, and added to its sometimes kinky appeal. The obvious home-court advantage in showing the film in Dawson notwithstanding, it was a lovingly-crafted, innovative, and entertaining cinematic outing that was well-received by the audience, who gave Keating a raucous ovation.

Veronica Verkley, (at left) collaborated on the animation for Lucille’s Ball with Lulu Keating (right). Lulu holds a congratulatory bottle of champagne given to her by audience members after the film’s screening.

Keating thanked the many supporters who helped the project come to fruition, starting with the citizens of Dawson City. The first money for the production came as an Advanced Artist Award from Yukon Arts for writing the script in the fall of 2008, and subsequent funding and support came from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Yukon Film and Sound Commission, Telefilm Canada, and Superchannel. Local artist and art-college instructor Veronica Verkley also co-created the film’s animated sequences with Keating.

Vancouver actor Britt Irvin playing the title role in the feature film Lucille’s Ball, written, directed, and co-produced by Dawson’s own Lulu Keating.

At a Q&A session afterwards, Keating  fielded questions from the audience and gave some insights into the making of a feature film on a shoestring budget. She had nothing but praise for Vancouver actor Britt Irvin, who plays the lead role and, indeed, steals the movie with her acting and singing.  Keating admitted she had a hand in writing the songs used in the film, and says she was inspired  to expand her repertoire of artistic talents by some of people she has met since moving to Dawson City.

Keating and Lucille’s Ball story editor Roslyn Muir, who also wrote and produced a short that is appearing in the festival,  will be hosting a workshop called Deconstructing Lucille’s Ball tomorrow (Friday 29 March) at 1 p.m. at the Yukon School of the Visual Arts.

Blog post contributed by Dan Dowhal, Writer-at-Large. Danny is a Toronto-born author and digital media producer who first came to the Yukon as a Berton House Writer-In-Residence. His novels include Skyfisher and Flam Grub. He now makes his home in Dawson City.

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Film Screening

February 3rd 7PM. KIAC Ballroom THE END OF TIME (114 minutes, 2012)

Director Peter Mettler in Attendance to introduce and answer questions after the film.

Working at the limits of what can easily be expressed, filmmaker Peter Mettler takes on the elusive subject of time, and once again turns his camera to filming the unfilmmable.

From the particle accelerator in Switzerland, where scientists seek to probe regions of time we cannot see, to lava flows in Hawaii which have overwhelmed all but one home on the south side of Big Island; from the disintegration of inner city Detroit, to a Hindu funeral rite near the place of Buddha’s enlightenment, Mettler explores our perception of time. He dares to dream the movie of the future while also immersing us in the wonder of the everyday.

 ARTIST TALK with Peter Mettler

February 4th, 7-9pm KIAC Ballroom, FREE!

Mettler is known for a diversity of work in image and sound mediums – foremost for his films such as “Picture of Light” and “Gambling, Gods and LSD” but also as a photographer and groundbreaking live audio/visual-mixing performer. His work bridges the gap between experimental, narrative, personal essay, and documentary. He has collaborated with an extensive range of international artists and has been honored with awards and retrospectives worldwide.

We would like to thank the Yukon Film and Sound Commission, the Yukon Film Society and the Available Light Film Festival for their assistance in presenting Peter Mettler.

48 Hour Film Festival Screening!

Saturday, January 26th, 7 PM
KIAC Ballroom

Cant remember what you did last weekend???  Come out and see what 17 filmmakers did!  A screening of last weekends 48 Hour filmmaking challenge in Dawson City and Whitehorse! Vote for your favorite! Admission by donation! Cash bar and fresh popcorn!
Doors open at 6:30pm

 

Dawson International Short Film Festival Submission deadline this Friday!

December 14th is the final deadline for submissions to the 14th Dawson City International Short Film Festival. For more info click here!

3 films at KIAC tonight!

3 Films tonight at 7:30 at KIAC…..
Lulu Keating, Meg Walker and Dan Sokolowski!!!
Popcorn… real butter AND
you could win a sweet Degrees North Compass/key chain!!!