25 Canadian and International fiction and documentary feature films.
See trailers and film websites at alff.ca.

Tickets and Passes
www.yukontickets.com.
Yukon Arts Centre Box Office, in person or by phone 667-8574,
Arts Underground and at the door.
Single tickets: $11/ $10 for YFS members (includes $2 box office surcharge)
Five Film Pass $45
NFB Animation for kids: all tickets $3
Weekday afternoon screenings: all tickets $5

Industry Forum, Feb 11 - 13 workshops and panels information coming soon.
Looking for SCHEDULE OF FILMS AT A GLANCE? read on...

9pm – Prairie Tales 11
Alberta, 2008/2009, 105 min
Short drama, personal essay, documentary, animation and experimental films make up this strong collection of sixteen new Albertan works on film and video extensively reflecting the diverse, expanding culture of film and media art creation in the beguiling prairie province. Highlights include: Prairie Torch Song, an ethereal story of the five minutes before the shooting of a music video featuring torch singer Wendy McNeill and her song Cigarettes and You. Baby Boots is a beautiful and bucolic short drama about how innocuous events can often have profound impacts. The very funny, The Island, answers the question: What would it be like if gay people had their own island? Queer filmmaker Trevor Anderson opens his rumination on that question with the image of himself tromping across a barren, snow-covered prairie. Co-presented with Metro Cinema, Edmonton, AB.

MORE FIREHALL FILMS listings

Firehall Films is the Yukon Film Society’s monthly screening series at the Old Firehall at First Ave and Main Street in Whitehorse.
Tickets for each screening: $7/$5 YFS members. YFS Memberships $5.

YFS gratefully acknowledges the support of Canada Council for the Arts, Yukon Lotteries, and Yukon Tourism and Culture for this on-going cinema series.

Ghosts and Gravel Roads
Mike Rollo, Québec, 2008, 16 min
The lost memories of old photographs and artifacts found in the bleached landscape of Saskatchewan serve as a metaphor for displacement.

A Year at Sherbrooke
Thomas Hale, Saskatchewan, 2009, 54 min
Two artists work with residents in a longterm care facility in Saskatoon to explore how creativity can transform people’s lives, from the abled to the differently-abled.

9pm – Pow Wow Highway
Jonathan Wacks, USA, 1989, 87 min
Two friends from a Montana Cheyenne reserve take a road trip to New Mexico to fight the wrongful imprisonment of a family member. Canadian actor, Gary Farmer, is excellent in this enduring comedy.

9pm Naked Lunch
David Cronenberg, Ontario, 1991, 115 mins
Based on the surrealistic literary classic by William S Burroughs. The time is 1953. A pest exterminator's life whirls out of control when his wife becomes hooked on the poison powder he uses to kill the cockroaches of New York City.
Watch the trailer.

9:15pm – Ugetsu
Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1953, 97 min
This beautiful and haunting tale of love and loss from Japan is
considered as one of the great masterpieces in the history of cinema.

More info on Firehall Films page.

The Available Light Film Festival is an intimate 5 days of Canadian and International documentaries and dramas. Filmmaker guests, 25 carefully selected films, and workshops all in Yukon's premiere arts presentation venue, the Yukon Arts Centre.

If you're considering visiting from Outside the Territory, we'll have travel packages through Air North, Yukon's Airline available soon. Departures from Calgary, Edmonton or Vancouver.

Line-up announcements will be made starting in December.
Previous year's programs can be downloaded here.

Available Light Film Festival 2010
February 10 to 14
alff@yukonfilmsociety.com for more info.

7pm Black Wave: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez
Robert Cornellier, Canada, 2008, 99 min
Twenty years after the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska the citizens of Cordova are still dealing with the environmental and social fallout.
Trailer

9pm Tulpan
Sergey Dvortsevoy, Ger/Kzn/Pld/Rus/Swz, 2008, 100 min
Following his Russian naval service, young dreamer Asa returns to his sister’s nomadic brood on the desolate Hunger Steppe to begin a hardscrabble career as a shepherd. But before he can tend a flock of his own, Asa must win the hand of the only eligible bachelorette for miles—his alluringly mysterious neighbour Tulpan. Winner of 11 international film festival awards, including Cannes.
Trailer

Friday October 23 films info:
Firehall Films Page

9pm - Dead Man
Jim Jarmusch, USA/JPN/GER, 1995, 121 min
Johnny Depp is William Blake, an accountant from Cleveland, who arrives in the bleak 19th century mining town, Machinery, at the edge of America. Mistakenly pegged as a murderer, he flees to the woods – lost and badly wounded – where he is aided by an outcast Aboriginal man named, Nobody (Gary Farmer), who believes Blake is actually
the dead English poet of the same name. With appearances by
Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Crispin Glover and Gabriel Byrne.

Old Firehall (First Ave & Main Street)
Tickets at the door. $7/ $5 YFS members

Click on titles for a link to the trailer.

YFS gratefully acknowledges the support of ON YUKON TIME, Yukon Tourism and Culture and the Canada Council for the Arts for this event.

Wednesday August 12
Old Firehall (First Ave & Main Street)
Tickets at the door. $7/ $5 YFS members

8pm - Brokeback Mountain
Dir. Ang Lee, 2005, USA, 134 min
The contemporary classic that shatters mythologies about the Strong, Silent male, and cowboy culture. Based on the short story by E. Annie Proulx.

Thursday August 13
7pm - Picturing the Yukon 09: Life, Death, and Steamboats
Recent and older independent Yukon films plus the CBC Vancouver 1963 classic, Last Voyage of the SS Keno. 73 min program
Full program listing is on our Firehall Films page

8:30pm - Picturing the Yukon 09: New Works
Eleven new short films by Yukon artists.
Featuring the award-winning animation, How People Got Fire. 60 min program
Full program listing is on our Firehall Films page

YFS gratefully acknowledges the support of ON YUKON TIME for our summer programming.

Giant
See the trailer!
Dir. George Stevens, USA, 1956, 201 min
Starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean (in his last role). Texan rancher Bick visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie. They are married immediately and return to his ranch. The story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy Jett Rink unfolds across two generations. An epic film that was #82 (between Modern Times and Platoon) on the 1998 American Film Institute's 100 years... 100 movies, best of American cinema.

A companion film to August's feature, Brokeback Mountain, based on the essay 'Death of the strong, silent type: The acheivement of Brokeback Mountain' (download the PDF here) by Christopher Sharrett, in Filmint Journal. Also part of a series of revisionist westerns being presented as 2009 Firehall Films.

Doors open at 7:30pm
Tickets $7/$5 YFS Members

Thursday July 16
Old Firehall

7pm Circumpolar short films
Films, as seen at the dawson city intl short ff from, Iceland, Norway, Alaska, Yukon, NWT and Russia. Programmed by DCISFF coordinator, Dan Sokolowski.
Frozen Poem, Last Stop for Miles, Dog, Varde, Repeated Crimes, Drum Practice, Tell Us the truth Josephine, and Sikumi (on the ice).

9pm Picturing the Yukon 09: Reconciliation Films
The Man who Always Lives in the Bush (Mary Jane Moses),
Shipyards Lament (Andrew Connors)
Tending Toward Silence (Arlin McFarlane)
My Own Private Lower Post (Duane Ghastant' Aucoin)

Tickets $7/$5 YFS Members

YFS gratefully acknowledges the support of On Yukon Time, Lotteries Yukon and Yukon Tourism of Culture.

Read about the films we presented at The Atlin Arts and Music festival July 10 + 11

Sunday, June 7, 8pm
Old Firehall (First Ave & Main Street)

Yojimbo See the trailer!
Dir. Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1961, 110 min
Kurosawa’s anti-hero ‘western’ Yojimbo stars Toshiro Mifune as a crafty ronin who comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town. This picture, shot in widescreen 'Tohoscope', was a direct influence on director Sergio Leone and the spaghetti western genre.

Sponsored in part by Janus Films/The Criterion Collection.

Co-presented with the Japanese Canadian Association of Yukon.
Refreshments and door prizes.

Doors open at 7:30pm
Tickets $7/$5 YFS or JCAY Members

Their band, Anvil, went on to become the "demigods of Canadian metal," releasing one of the heaviest albums in metal history, 1982's Metal on Metal. The album influenced a musical generation, including Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax, that went on to sell millions of records. But Anvil's career took a different path - straight to obscurity.

Director Sacha Gervasi has concocted a wonderful and often hilarious account of Anvil's last-ditch quest for elusive fame and fortune. His ingenious filmmaking may first lead you to think this a mockumentary, but it isn't. Gervasi joined the legendary heavy-metal band as a roadie for a tour of Canadian hockey arenas, so he has intimate insight into the members' eccentricities. It's fascinating to see the reality of their day-to-day lives as they struggle to make ends meet, take a misguided European tour, and engage in antics on the road - which is not always lined with fans. Gervasi even finds a softer center to this raucous film, introducing us to band members' ever-supportive, but long-suffering, families.

At its core, ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL is a timeless tale of survival and the unadulterated passion it takes to follow your dream, year after year. Anvil rocks - it has no other choice."

- John Cooper
(from the Sundance Film Fest 2008 Catalog)

>>Film shorts before Anvil! were produced in Yukon Film Society’s intensive training program, Mise-en-scène.<<

die dixie, die – don’t die
Dir. Ian Basso, 9 min, 2009
When insurance agents buy policies on themselves to meet the sales quota, they learn that the uninsured life is not worth living.

Love, Emma
Dir. Arlin McFarlane, 10 min, 2009
Alice is a teenager more interested in tunes and texting than dead relatives she never knew. But a story her late great grandmother leaves behind in a dollhouse wrenches Alice out of her programmed world.

YFS hosts Winnipeg-based avant-garde filmmaker, Deco Dawson. A collaborator with Winnipeg’s Royal Art Lodge and Guy Maddin, Deco was named one of the top 25 young independent filmmakers in North America by New York’s Filmmaker magazine. Screening to be followed by an artist talk.

The Last Moment 29 min, 2007
A multi-fractured, multi-genre narrative which uses five styles of film history — Film Noir, Dogme 95, Late-era Hitchcock, Tarantino and 60s New Wave — to explore the final moments of a man’s life and the ill-fated relationship woes that have lead up to his death.

The Fever of the Western Nile 7 min, 2003
Summer passings observed the enigmatic West Nile malady steal its way into the minds and forests of Winnipeg wanderers, casting its feverish amnesia spell; immobilizing wooded creatures collectively.

FILM(dzama) 23 min, 2001
This entirely fictional biography of the internationally celebrated visual artist Marcel Dzama is motivated by the sheer magic, humour and disobedience of Dzama’s work, coupled with the the stylistically obstinate themes common to Dawson’s work. FILM(dzama) is an attempt to rekindle the surrealist cinema made popular in the 1920s by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel and Man Ray.

Dumb Angel 9 min, 2005
Inspired by fragments of Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, Dumb Angel features 17-year old preternaturally talented rock drummer Anders Erickson, the undisputed incarnation of The Who’s Keith Moon. Equal parts short film, improvised performance, documentary, music video, experimental film and audio composition, Dumb Angel presents an odd examination of fame, talent and television celebrity.

Monday, April 13 — Master Class with Deco Dawson
Redirecting: Film History as Contemporary Cinematic Inspiration

Deco Dawson will present a number of clips from film history that he has found inspirational, cutting edge and timeless. In many instances very courageous, imaginative and unique pieces of work have been created out of synch with contemporary movie making of the time. These hidden gems, often snippets, scenes or characters are forgotten and buried away only to be rediscovered by new filmmakers scouring the cinematic archives. Deco will discuss how merely discovering these troves can lead to the re-imagining of current projects and injecting them with a new life.

Examples include the works of Norman McLaren, Arthur Lipsett, Busby Berkeley, Michel Gondry as well as oft overlooked techniques such as multiple exposures, optical printing, day for night photography and everything the film noir filmmakers ever attempted.

7pm to 10pm, Old Firehall, Free Admission
RSVP: td@yukonfilmsociety.com

Eighteen short films from the first 10 years of the Yukon's landmark International short film festival. Programmed by co-founder and festival director, David Curtis. Featuring work from Australia, Norway, Iran, Romania, Poland, Ireland, and across Canada.

7pm - Program 1: Humans + Animals, 100 mins
I Could Have Been Human, Business, Tommy, My Indian Bum, At The Quite Hotel, The Terms, La Photo, A Shift in Perception, Shipyards Lament

9pm - Program 2: Loadstars, 105 mins
Mushum, Mumuring Sound of Running Water, Aydaygooay, A Life to Live, Drift, Help, Trygve With His Heart In the Mailbox, My Name is Pochsy, Crummy 841

ONE NIGHT ONLY.

International Cinema
Guest filmmakers in attendance
20 screenings over 5 days
3 day ALFF industry Forum

Tickets: $9/ 8 for YFS members
Five Film Pass $40/ $35 for YFS members
NFB Animation for kids- all tickets are $3
Tickets and passes available at Yukon Arts Centre Box Office, in person or by phone 667-8574, Arts Underground and at the door.

Download the 2009 schedule PDF from the ALFF home page.

Films added Jan 29:
Frozen River
Courtney Hunt, USA, 2008, 97m
Nominated for 2 Academy Awards®
Trailer

Ce qu’il faut pour vivre (Necessities of Life)
Benoît Pilon, Québec, 2008, 102m
Starring Inuk actor, Natar Ungalaaq (Atanarjuat/The Fast Runner)
Film Website

Previously announced
Slepé lásky (Blind Loves)
Juraj Lehotsky, Slovakia, 2008, 77m
Film Website | Trailer

Passage
John Walker, Nova Scotia + Ontario, 2008, 107m
Director, john Walker, in attendance
Film Website

Heaven on Earth
Deepa Mehta, Ontario, 2008, 106m
Producer, David Hamilton, in attendance
Trailer

How People Got Fire
Daniel Janke, Yukon, 2009, 13m
World Premiere

Religulous
Larry Charles, USA, 2008, 101m
Film Website

The Betrayal – Nerakhoon
Ellen Kuras & Thavisouk Phrasavath, USA & Laos, 2008, 96m
Description

The English Surgeon
Geoffrey Smith, United Kingdom, 2007, 94m
Film Website

Nurse.Fighter.Boy
Charles Officer, Ontario, 2008, 93m
Film Website

California Company Town
Lee Anne Schmitt, USA, 2008, 77m
Film Description

RiP: The Remix Manifesto
Brett Gaylor, Québec, 2009, 80m
Film Website

The Linguists
Daniel A Miller, USA, 2007, 65m
Film Website

Tribal Journeys: Paddle to Quw’utusun
Shirley McLean, Yukon, 2008, 48m
Producer Brenda Chambers, and director in attendance.

Mothers and Daughters
(Dir. Carl Bessai) British Columbia, 80m
Trailer
Director Carl Bessai, and actress Tantoo Cardinal in attendance.

My Own Private Lower Post
(Dir. Duane Ghastant' Aucoin & Gordon Loverin) Yukon Territory, 2008, 32m
Trailer

Before Tomorrow
Marie-Hélène Cousineau & Madeline Ivalu, Nunavut & Québec, 90m
Film Website | Trailer

Ballast
Lance Hammer, USA, 2008 96m
Trailer

O'Horten
Bent Hamer, Norway, 2008, 90m
Film Website |Trailer

Patti Smith Dream of Life
Steven Sebring, USA, 2007, 109m
Film Website