• Available Light Film Festival
• 
• Picturing the Yukon Film Series
• 
• Workshops
• 
• Equipment
• 
• About YFS

6th Annual Available Light Film Festival

March 4th to March 9th, 2008

Yukon Arts Centre • Qwanlin Cinema Centre

24 Screenings. 4 workshops. 2 Panel discussions.

Click here to download the schedule (PDF).

Tuesday, March 4 - Yukon Arts Centre

6pm - Opening Reception

7pm - Garbage Warrior

Dir. Oliver Hodge, United Kingdom, 2007, 87m, G | Website/Trailer

For 30 years, New Mexico-based renegade architect Michael Reynolds and his green disciples have devoted their time to advancing the art of “Earthship Biotecture” by building self-sufficient, off-the-grid communities where design and function converge in ecoharmony. However, these experimental structures defy state standards and create conflict between Reynolds and the authorities. Frustrated by antiquated legislation, Reynolds lobbies the state of New Mexico for the right to create a sustainable living test site.

Screening Sponsor: Raven Recycling

9pm - Brand Upon The Brain!

Dir. Guy Maddin, Canada/USA , 2006, 97m, NR | Website/Trailer

Equal parts childhood reminiscence, expressionist horror film, teen detective serial, and Grand Guignol reverie, Brand Upon the Brain! is a cinematic spectacle from the unique mind of Canada’s own Guy Maddin (Saddest Music in the World, ALFF 04). In which the shocking truth is finally revealed about young Guy and his hellish childhood on a remote island, under the hyper-watchful eye of a crazed mother and a diabolically distant scientistfather, proprietors of a mom-and-pop orphanage they surreptitiously operate within the dank confines of the family lighthouse.

Screening Sponsor: Midnight Sun Coffee Roaster

Wednesday, March 5 - Qwanlin Cinema

7pm - Continental, un film sans fusil (A Film Without Guns)

Dir. Stéphane Lafleur, Québec, 2007, 103m, PG | Website/Trailer

When a businessman disappears from his suburban Québec life, he leaves a void that haunts his wife and three strangers. Another on the list of the top ten films of Canadian cinema for 2007. “Continental stands beside other contemporary films from Sweden (You, the Living), Mexico (Amores Perros) and Austria (Code Inconnu) that similarly look at the way contemporary cultural and economic patterns in globalized societies are breaking down individuals’ senses of connection, security and hope.” — Cinemascope, Winter 2008.

Screening Sponsor: SIM Video

9pm - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Dir. Julien Schnabel, France/USA , 2007, 114m, PG-13 | Website/Trailer

This powerful film, by the director of Basquiat and Before Night Falls, is the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a charismatic editor-in-chief of French Elle, who believes he is living his life to its absolute fullest when a sudden stroke leaves him in a life-altered state. While the physical challenges of Bauby’s fate leave him with little hope for the future, he begins to discover how his life’s passions, his rich memories and his newfound imagination can help him achieve a life without boundaries. Nominated for 4 Academy Awards®.

Screening Sponsor: Carcare Motors

Thursday, March 6 - Qwanlin Cinema

7pm - L’Esprit des lieux (The Spirit of Places)

Dir. Catherine Martin, Québec, 2006, 84m, G | Website/Trailer

The Charlevoix region of Québec on the north shore of the St. Lawrence has changed dramatically since Hungarian-Québecois photographer Gabor Szilasi documented the culture of the region in 1970. Thirty-five years later, filmmaker Catherine Martin returns with Gabor, retracing his photographic itinerary as Szilasi takes stock of that which has disappeared in Charlevoix and the spirit that remains.

Screening Sponsor: AFY

9pm - Control

Dir. Anton Corbijn, UK/Australia/Japan, 2007, 121m, R | Website/Trailer

Ian Curtis had aspirations beyond the trappings of small town life in 1970s England. Wanting to emulate his musical heroes, David Bowie and Iggy Pop, he joins a band − Joy Division, and his musical ambition begins to thrive. Soon though, the everyday fears and emotions that fuel his music, slowly begin to eat away at him. With epilepsy adding to his guilt and depression, desperation takes hold. Strikingly realized in black and white by Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn.

Screening Sponsor: Landmark Cinemas

Friday, March 7 - Yukon Arts Centre

9:30am - Documentary Research & Production Preparation Master Class

with Catherine Martin

In these days of instant media, camcorders and digital production, emerging filmmakers under-estimate the planning and research stage of documentary filmmaking. Join Montréal-based filmmaker, Catherine Martin, for a discussion and examination of the process of preparing to shoot material for a documentary film.

Cost: $20/$15 YFS members. Register by e-mail or call 393-3456

12pm - Océan (Ocean)

Dir. Catherine Martin, Québec, 2002, 50m, G | Website/Trailer

‘Ocean’ is the name of the Via train that travels the Montréal-Halifax corridor. Its modern silver cars from the 1950s are a reminder of elegant passenger trains that harkens back to a glorious bygone era.

Screening Sponsor: Westmark Whitehorse

1:15pm - Hear and Now

Dir. Irene Taylor Brodsky, USA , 2006, 86m, NR | Website/Trailer

This point-of-view documentary tells the fascinating story of the filmmaker’s deaf parents who, after living in near silence for 65 years, decide to have cochlear implant surgery. A very intimate film that follows their emotional journey surrounding their experimental surgery, Hear and Now forces us to imagine the effect of experiencing sound for the first time after a lifetime of silence.

Screening Sponsor: Norcan Leasing

1pm - Meet the NFB Pacific and Yukon Centre

with Executive Producer Tracey Friesen and Producer Yves J Ma

Based in Vancouver, the Pacific and Yukon Centre of the National Film Board of Canada has enjoyed a number of successful collaborations with Yukon creators, such as: Werner Walcher (River of Life), Marten Berkman (Adrenalin Bach), Mitch Miyagawa & David Oppenheim (Our Town Faro), plus the Yukon Vérité and Northern Sights initiatives. Recently, an NFB team was in Teslin working with aboriginal youth on digital storytelling as part of a program called Our World. This session will cover how filmmakers submit proposals to the NFB, the current programming priorities, an overview of the production process, and include some clips or trailers of current work. Tracey and Yves also hope to meet local participants and learn about relevant projects in development.

Free admission.

3pm - Panel: Social and Personal Documentary Filmmaking

Panelists: Catherine Martin, Werner Walcher, Tracey Friesen, Lulu Keating

Moderator: Mitch Miyagawa

Affecting change with a camera, microphone, and the truth?

Supported by Yukon Film & Sound Commission

3pm - A Place Between

Dir. Curtis Kaltenbaugh, Manitoba, 2007, 72m, G | Website/Trailer

When the filmmaker was 5 years old, he and his brother were removed from their birth mother’s care in Manitoba and adopted by a white, middle-class pastor’s family in Pennsylvania. This compelling film follows his struggle with his mother’s turbulent life and observes as he orchestrates a meeting between his biological family and adoptive family in a personal journey to discover how he fits into each world.

Screening Sponsor: Yukon Energy

Inside Time

Dir. Jason Young, Nova Scotia, 2007, 35m, G | Website/Trailer

‘Bank robbers have long been romanticized in Western culture, but few have been able to tell their own story with as much self-awareness and existential reflection as Stephen Reid. This thoughtful documentary is about an extraordinary man, a notorious member of the ‘Stopwatch Gang,’ who once lived out the crazy, frantic life of the outlaw bandit.

5pm - Hope

Dir. Stuart Reaugh & Thomas Buchan, British Columbia, 2007, 56m, G | Website/Trailer

Gorgeous cinematography portrays a year in the life of a family living on the Schkam Native Reserve at the crossroads of the transitory Fraser Valley community of Hope. Artist Ken, his partner Winnie, and their five boys struggle to cope during a year of wrenching change.

Screening Sponsor: NFB

Gene Boy Came Home

Dir. Alanis Obomsawin, Québec, 2007, 24m, G | Website/Trailer

Iconic Abenaki documentary filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin’s latest film is the harrowing and deeply moving story of Gene Benedict’s two years of service in America’s Vietnam War and his long journey back to the Odanak Indian Reserve in Québec.

Screening Sponsor: NFB

7pm - The Tracey Fragments

Dir. Bruce McDonald, Ontario, 2007, 80m, 14A | Website/Trailer

Bruce McDonald’s latest film is a fractured split screen feature that follows teenaged outcast Tracey (Academy Award® leading actress nominee, Ellen Page) as she leaves her small town for the bright lights of Winnipeg. Nominated for 6 Genie Awards. “A fearless coming of age story, Ellen Page manages exactly the right balance of awkwardness, intensity, sexuality and innocence.” — Vanity Fair

Screening Sponsor: Terra Firma Art Co.

8:45pm - Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

Dir. Jason Kohn, USA , 2006, 85m, NR | Website/Trailer

Violence and corruption are the tools of the rich and poor of Sao Paulo, Brazil in this film about frog farming, massive government corruption and kidnapping. Citing Robocop and Errol Morris’ Fast, Cheap and Out of Control as influences, Kohn calls his film, “a nonfiction science fiction film.” Bombastic cinemascope images of modernist Sao Paulo skyscrapers and slums are set to a 1970s Brazilian rock n’ roll soundtrack. Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Winner for 2007. “Loads of dark humour and cinematic flair!” — Variety.

Screening Sponsor: Arctic Star Printing Inc.

10:30pm - Cowards Bend the Knee

Dir. Guy Maddin, Manitoba, 2003, 63m, R | Website/Trailer

Originally commissioned as 10 short peep-show installations at Toronto’s Power Plant Gallery, Guy Maddin’s favourite themes—voyeuristic sexuality, hockey violence and domineering matriarchy are luridly displayed in this cheeky ‘autobiography.’ Says Maddin, Cowards is “a lovingly self-loathing peek at myself, but only as I would have enough courage to look through a cracked glass made foggy by hairspray.”

Screening Sponsor: Arctic Star Printing Inc.

Saturday, March 8 - Yukon Arts Centre

9:30am - Editing Drama

with Gareth C Scales

An uninspired film editor can work with great raw material and make a mediocre film. A great film editor can transform mediocre material into a great film. The ubiquity and power of desktop video editing has made the art of film editing a more complex craft. Gareth will present a master class in dramatic film editing that will include; demonstrations and examples of his editing style and other styles and techniques that have influenced him, a discussion about working with bleeding edge production formats, a look at how films can change between the script and the edit process, and talk about the approach the editing team used for The Tracey Fragments, which is almost entirely presented in a split screen, multiple narrative structure. All cinéphiles and filmmakers are welcome.

Cost: $20/$15 YFS members. Register by e-mail or call 393-3456

Supported by Yukon Cultural Industries Training Trust Fund

12pm - Free Screening! Celluloid to Cellphone: Short Films

Madame Tutli-Putli

Dir. Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, Québec, 2007, 17m, G | Website/Trailer

Madame Tutli-Putli boards the night train, weighed down with all her earthly possessions and the ghosts of her past. As day descends into dark, she finds herself caught up in a desperate metaphysical adventure. This innovative NFB animation has been winning accolades all over the world and is nominated for the Best Short Animated Film at the 2008 Oscars®.

The Heart of the World

Dir. Guy Maddin, Ontario/Manitoba, 2000, 6m, NR | Website/Trailer

Considered Guy Maddin’s masterpiece return to form. Two brothers, mortician Nikolai and actor Osip love the same woman, scientist Anna, who studies the earth’s core, or the “heart of the world.”

Smile

Dir. Julia Kwan, British Columbia, 2007, 18m, NR | Website/Trailer

Julia Kwan (Eve and the Fire Horse, ALFF 06) and producer, Yves Ma’s newest collaboration is a 1970s slice-of-life about a Chinese family who use their free Sears coupon to take an annual family portrait that will be sent back to relatives in China. Their Mother does not allow them to smile, however, as she thinks it’s rude to show them how happy they are in the New World.

Screening Sponsor: Arlin McFarlane Casting

1pm - Empties

Dir. Jan Svarek, Czech Republic, 2007, 103m, NR | Website/Trailer

Oscar® winning director Svarek completes his trilogy of films about life stages with this comedy about a blithe, somewhat mischievous literature professor who reluctantly retires. Restless from the change, he refuses to accept retirement without a fight and in the process rediscovers the love of his life. From the creative team that made the heartwrenchingly beautiful film Kolya.

1pm - Panel: From Celluloid to Cellphone - Creating Canadian Drama

Panelists: Gareth C Scales, Guy Maddin, Jody Shapiro, Carol Geddes, Yves J Ma

Moderator: Celia McBride

Film, high def video, mobile content and interactive internet content. The production mediums and delivery methods for moving images are now mind-boggling. Are Canadians poised to break out as international film, television and media storytellers everywhere but in our own backyard?

Supported by Yukon Film & Sound Commission

3pm - Here Are the News: Edith Josie

Dir. Cathleen Smith, British Columbia/Yukon, 2008, 48m, G

Edith Josie began writing for the Whitehorse Star in 1963 and was soon syndicated in newspapers all over the world where she reports on the daily activities and events of the village of Old Crow. This biopic about Yukon’s famous Gwich’in newspaper columnist is a 10-year labour of love created by former Yukoner, Cathleen Smith.

Unakuluk (Dear Little One)

Dir. Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Nunavut, 2005, 46m, G | Website/Trailer

In Inuit culture, adopting a child from a relative, friend or acquaintance is extremely common. The filmmaker lived in Igloolik for many years where she became the adoptive mother of Alexandre Apak. This documentary explores Inuit family relations through the personal histories of women who have experienced adoption.

Screening Sponsor: Scotiabank

5pm - Quest

Dir. Byron McKim, British Columbia/Ontario, 2005, 48m, G | Website/Trailer

This original Aboriginal dance piece was created and written by Byron Chief-Moon, using the stories his grandparents from the Blood Reserve once told him as a child about the ‘Sleeping People.’ Quest examines how modern life has led to the loss of rituals, a lack of respect for nature and spiritual emptiness.

7pm - My Winnipeg

Dir. Guy Maddin, Manitoba, 2007, 80m, G | Website/Trailer

Guy Maddin’s top ten film of Canadian cinema for 2007 is both personal fantasy and mythic construction of the history of the people and places of Canada’s coldest city in Maddin’s signature silent film flair. From his boyhood home above a beauty salon, to the Winnipeg Arena where his father worked for the Maroons and Canada’s national teams, and where Guy spent much of his childhood, to the naming of new streets after prostitutes of Winnipeg brothels by city fathers of the 1920s, we’re taken on a surreal journey in this ‘documentary’ about the sleep-walking capital of Canada.

Screening Sponsor: Kobayashi + Zedda Architects Ltd.

9pm - Poor Boy's Game

Dir. Clement Virgo, Nova Scotia/Ontario, 2007, 103m, R | Website/Trailer

A boxing drama about fear, rage and forgiveness set in Halifax. Making his feature film debut is Rossif Sutherland (son of Donald, brother of Keifer) as Donnie Rose, a young white boxer who is released from prison after serving a sentence for the brutal beating of a black teenager. Donnie’s release sets in motion a series of escalating confrontations between the black and white communities of a working class neighbourhood and toward a boxing challenge from the black community’s talented and vengeful boxer. Danny Glover plays the damaged teen’s father in a powerfully under-stated performance.

Screening Sponsor: Directors Guild of Canada

Sunday, March 9 - Yukon Arts Centre

10am - High Concept, Low Budget: The Producer and Director Collaboration Master Class

with Guy Maddin and Jody Shapiro

Two heads are better than one. The two people on a film set that are responsible for everyone making the same film are the producer and the director. Jody Shapiro and Guy Maddin have been collaborating for 8 years, beginning with Guy’s short film The Heart of the World in 2000. They work in a niche market of artist-driven filmmaking with modest budgets and have been rewarded with international critical, and increasing commercial, success. Jody and Guy will discuss their creative relationship, share some thoughts on why they work well together and how they determine their respective roles and tasks on a production.

Cost: $20/$15 YFS members. Register by e-mail or call 393-3456

Supported by Yukon Cultural Industries Training Trust Fund and Yukon Film & Sound Commission

12pm - Anash and the Legacy of the Sun Rock:
Episodes 1 & 6

Dir. Carol Geddes, Yukon/Alberta, 2007, 2 x 23m, G | Website/Trailer

Yukon filmmaker Carol Geddes returns with an animated live-action series about young Anash as he tries to re-unite all parts of the Sun-Rock in order to fulfill a prophecy to attain peace and protect a fragile land. Free admission for kids under 12.

Screening Sponsor: Tle’Nax T’Awei Limited Partnership

1pm - Breakfast With Scot

Dir. Laurie Lynd, Ontario, 2007, 95m, PG | Website/Trailer

The story of a very ‘straight’ and closeted gay couple, one an ex-NHL hockey playerturned-sportscaster and the other a lawyer, who end up with temporary custody of recently orphaned Scot, an 11-year-old boy who is a total swishy, mincing sissy who loves Christmas carols and musicals. An unexpectedly honest, smart and funny film featuring strong performances by Tom Cavanagh and young actor, Noah Bernett.

Screening Sponsor: Yukon Pride Adventure Tours

3pm - Picturing the Yukon. 9 Short Films. DVD Launch Celebration!

The Yukon Film Society is producing its first DVD anthology of Yukon Short Films and sending it to the 8000 subscribers of Geist magazine in the Spring 2008 issue. Curated by Dan Sokolowski. Films; Aydaygooay, Two Winters, My Indian Bum, RAM, Boar Attack, Artifacts, Smallfilm, Dogs in Concert and Dawson Town Melted Down.

Screening Sponsor: Midnight Sun Coffee Roaster

5:30pm - The Cats of Mirikitani

Dir. Linda Hattendorf, USA , 2006, 74m, G | Website/Trailer

Eighty-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani survived the trauma of WWII internment camps, Hiroshima, and homelessness by creating art. But when 9/11 threatens his life on the New York City streets and a local filmmaker brings him to her home, the two embark on a journey to confront Jimmy’s painful past. An intimate exploration of the lingering wounds of war, and the healing powers of friendship and art.

7pm - Closing Screening: Up the Yangtze

Dir. Cathleen Smith, British Columbia/Yukon, 2008, 48m, G | Website/Trailer

A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze, navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as “The River.” In the biggest engineering endeavour since the Great Wall, China has set out to harness the Yangtze with the world’s largest mega-dam. Meanwhile at the river’s edge Yu Shui says goodbye to her family and turns to face the future. From their small patch of land, her parents watch the young woman walk away, her belongings clutched in a plastic shopping bag. A stunningly photographed documentary about the human dramas taking place on the shores of a river that is witnessing one of the largest human displacements in history. Winner of the Best Canadian Documentary Award at Vancouver International Film Festival 2007.

Copyright © 2008, Yukon Film Society. Website/Trailer designed and maintained by Design Station.