2011 FESTIVAL – April 21-24
Friday, 12 noon – 5 pm (at SOVA, 3rd and Queen)
From Documentary to Documentary Opera
An interactive workshop with Brenda Longfellow
This workshop will explore the process of transforming documentary source material into innovative forms, stretching and expanding the documentary palette to produce engaging and unexpected social issue interventions. Workshop participants will be involved in the production of a collective short, produced in a few short hours, that will use humour and performance to explore the local impact of climate change. The film will be conceived, shot and edited and then shown at the 7pm opening screening of the festival.
The general public will also be invited to attend and watch the process, which should be a highly educational and entertaining afternoon.
Most of Brenda’s work has involved smuggling fiction and enactment into documentary, writing fake diaries, creating fictional narrators, stretching the boundaries of documentary. Over the last two years, she has been working on a series of musical shorts which use opera, animation, faux interviews and shamelessly anthromorphized animals to explore social issues, in this instance, the environmental disaster of the Alberta Tar Sands. Brenda’s latest film, Carpe Diem, will screen in competition at the festival on Saturday night.
Brenda Longfellow is an award-winning filmmaker, film theorist and professor in the Department of Film, York University. In 2008 she completed Weather Report (2008) a television documentary that explores the effects of climate change on communities around the world.
Her previous productions include Our Marilyn (1987), an experimental documentary on Canadian swimmer Marilyn Bell; the feature-length drama Gerda (1992); A Balkan Journey/Fragments From The Other Side of War (1996); the Genie Award-winning documentary Shadow Maker: Gwendolyn MacEwen, Poet (1998); and Tina in Mexico (2002), a feature documentary on the silent film star and avant-garde photographer Tina Modotti.
Friday, 5:30 pm Artist talk (in the ODD Gallery, 2nd and princess)
Isabel Powell will introduce her weekend installation in the ODD Gallery.
Friday, 7 pm The Spell of the Yukon
Gone Fishin’ for BJ Poppa
Allan Code, Yukon, Documentary, 2
If a man is too busy for fishing; he is too damn busy.
Vadzaih Vakan Gwiidaandaii
(Caribou, our livelihood)
Mary Jane Moses, Yukon, Documentary, 6
Vadzaih Vakan Gwiidaandaii tells a real story about the Vuntut Gwitchin who are part of the Gwich’in Nation and their existance with and their reliance on the caribou. As Gwich’in people they are spiritually connected to the caribou in many ways.
Die, Die— Don’t Die!
Ian Basso, Yukon, Comedy, 10
Insurance selling ambulance drivers holders the power of life and death in their hands are faced with a choice between good and evil, love and money.
Finding Milton
Daniel Janke, Yukon, Experimental, 4
Finding Milton is a music driven (re)introduction to the work
of Milton Acorn, the people’s poet.
Come Back Little Star
Andrew Connors, Yukon, Experimental, 3
Emergency preparedness and maternal heartache come to light in a 1960s industrial outpost: the mining town of Elsa, Yukon.
GHOST ROCKETS WORLD TOUR:
10000 Megawatin Totuus
Charles Stankievech, Yukon, Experiemntal, 5
Returning to the origin of the Ghost Rocket theories, 10 000 Megawatin Totuus documents a rocket launch at the tip of Sveaborg Fortress on the island of Suomenlinna, Finland. The namesake of the Ghost Rockets World Tour spawns from the unidentified flying objects that flew over parts of Scandinavia post-WWII with a peak in sightings during 1946.
Our Changing Homeland, Our Changing Lives
Tookie Mercredi, Yukon, Documentary, 27
The land that has sustained the Vuntut Gwitchin (Old Crow, Yukon) in Canadas Arctic for millennia is undergoing rapid change due to global worming. This film takes you on a journey from nearly 20 years ago to the present with a community whose very survival is at risk.
Uu: Construction of the Whitehorse Dam
Edward Westerhuis, Yukon, Animation, 2
“Uu” is a new word, which describes barricading one’s self. Whitehorse is named after a set of dangerous rapids, where many were killed, as miners flocked to the Klondike. Local tourism refers to the hydro dam as the wall that “quelled the mighty waters”.
Elsa Mad Miners Muck Up
Andrew Connors, Yukon, Documentary, 9
Memories of a Whitehorse high school teacher who grew up learning hockey on an outdoor rink carved into the mountainside at Elsa.
Her Man Plan
Lulu Keating, Yukon, Drama, 5
When Stephanie was a kid, she decided that in the year 2010 she would take a man to father her children. In her isolated northern community in the Yukon, ‘the odds are good but the goods are odd’. She sets off by dog team to pick up her chosen man, but is ambushed by a man who has chosen her.
Observation & Intention
Chris Levett, Yukon, Drama, 8
The story of a young woman trying to find her place in the world and
her place in Dawson. Fed up with her job and the people
she encounters on a day to day basis she tries to leave town
but it is sometimes easier said than done.
Friday, 9:30 pm Secret Tales
Film not ready
Janet Perlman, Quebec, Animation, 1
This film was made by accident using experimental animation invisible to the naked eye. At least that’s what I wrote on the festival entry form for a film called “Llama Cookin’”, which didn’t even exist. I then started making the film but abandoned it after a few days, and changed the film’s title to “Sorry Film Not Ready”. Two weeks later I received a notification saying that the festival had not yet received “Sorry Film Not Ready”, but that the deadline had been extended by one week. I then decided to make the film after all, in one week..
Hidden Cities
John Graham, Newfoundland, Experimental, 2
Dreams’ may awaken us in this fantastical montage of an imaginary city.
Family First
Chris Hanratty, Ontario, Comedy, 7
Rob and Ashley have a big announcement, but when their news brings a family dinner to a screeching halt, they’re forced to question their choice. Family First is a dark comedy about family approval and the blindness of love.
The Doll Factory
Ainhoa Menéndez Goyoaga, Spain, Drama, 11
Anna works in a doll factory. Her whole life she revolves around performing mechanical motions to put the dolls eyes. But a small change at her work changed her life forever.
YESNO
Brian D. Johnson, Ontario, Experimental, 7
YESNO is a playful, poetic vision of the planet of the verge of a nervous breakdown. Based on the book by eminent Canadian poet DENNIS LEE, it combines live action and animation in a narrative that jives between hope and despair. Lee’s words are voiced by a pantheon of Canadian poets, including LEONARD COHEN, MICHAEL ONDAATJE and MARGARET ATWOOD. An apocalyptic montage takes us from the folds of the cerebral cortex to the jungles of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ and ‘The African Queen’. Sleight-of-hand by conjurer DAVID BEN forms the connective tissue. Moving from dark comedy to tender pathos, YESNO is a unique attempt to transform poetry into cinema: an experiment in film inspired by an experiment in language.
Colivia (The Cage)
Adrian Dorin Sitaru, Romania, Drama, 17
Love and survival in the tough struggle of maintaining the specie.
Lot 22, Concession 5
Penny McCann, Ontario, Experimental, 4
Hand-processed film imagery, tinted, toned, and transformed, is combined with memory fragments of a rural past to create a visual poem about family, place, and time. The film’s title refers to the lot and concession number of my great-grandfather’s farm in Westport, Ontario, as recorded in the 1911 census.
The voice is a fragment of the past, taken from a recording of my father,
Leonard McCann, who passed away in 1992.
The Return of Old Man Kabura
Patrick NgedaKumana, Burundi, Drama, 7
An 82-year-old refugee comes home to Burundi and tries to rebuild his life after
How To Pick Berries
Elina Talvensaar, Finland, Documentary, 19
Visitors from a distant place appear in the misty swamps of Northern Finland. They seem harmless, but their foreign presence disrupts the local community. How are they supposed to get along with these strangers when they are picking all «their» berries? how to pick berries is an exploration of the Finnish mind and the absurdities of global economy.
Sad Bear
Liz Van Allen Cairns, Joe LoBianco, BC, Drama, 10
Sad Bear is the tale of a creature that travels the world taking away people’s saddest belongings. One day Sad Bear meets Steve, who is not yet ready to part with his saddest object: a pair of crocodile leather boots.
This is the story of Sad Bear versus Steve.
Friday, 11:30 pm Strange Things Done
Figs in Motion
Trevor Anderson, Alberta, Comedy, 8
Two men become six ballerinas and several horses in a bestial, impromptu corps de ballet. A riff on the imagery of Edgar Degas and the photography of Eadweard Muybridge. Commissioned by the Art Gallery of Alberta as part of their grand reopening celebrations. Featuring original music composed for the film by Bryce Kulak and by The Wet Secrets.
The Devil Wears a Paper Hat
Curtis L. Wiebe, Manitoba, Animation, 17
An imaginative young girl is pursued by a paper clad gunslinger through a wintery world inhabited by living paper birds and a moving, mysterious tree-man.
F**k Yeah
Shane Belcourt, Ontario, Comedy, 9
Things are going really well for Jim, the lead singer in a rock band. His band really rocks. He really rocks. They are really rocking awesome. Substitute “really” with profanity at its best and you have a hilarious short about band mutiny gone really, “really” wrong.
The Devil’s Kitchen
Nathan Bragg, Yukon, Comedy, 5
Our demonic host prepares Hell’s Chicken and proves that he truly is the boss from hell in the process An excerpt form the Hell Channel — “The Devil’s Kitchen” Episode 786,665. Made during KIAC’s 48 Hour Film Competition.
Goths! On the Bus!
Jaimz and Karen Asmundson, Manitoba, Comedy, 3
A couple of über-goths ride the public transit to the mall to buy more lipstick, but the subtext! Pain, suffering and eternal damnation wrapped in velvety angst. It’s sunny outside, but dark in their souls.
WISDOM TEETH
Don Hertzfeldt, USA, Animation, 5
Wisdom Teeth, is about a man who’s had his wisdom teeth removed. A friend asks to pull out one of his stitches.
Exlibris
María Trénor, Spain, Animation, 14
How many people before me have read, touched and enjoyed an old book bought at a second-hand bookstore? Four different people in four different locations, at four different times, read, touch and enjoy the same book. Exlibris is a visual poem that pays tribute to old books, to bookstores and to the pleasure of reading as seen through a copy of ‘Don Quixote’.
You are so Undead
Alex Epstein, Quebec, Horror, 6
A teen vampire sex comedy. Teenage MARY MARGARET no Longer reflects in the mirror — she let her vampire boyfriend Drew go “all the way” and now she’s undead!
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