Over its 67-year history, the Yorkton Film Festival (YFF) has adapted to the advent of television, VHS players, and Internet streaming to remain North America's longest-running film festival. One of the secrets to its success is year-round programming supported through local, provincial and national partnerships.
Each year, the YFF's Golden Sheaf Awards DVD Tour offers award-winning films from the festival to organizations across Canada, free of charge. Films are grouped by theme, with sponsors funding the development, marketing and technical requirements for each DVD. For example, the Painted Hand Casino Community Development Corporation sponsors the Aboriginal theme, the Sunrise Health Region sponsors health, and Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) sponsors safety. There are a number of themes, including seniors, children, performing arts, environment and nature.
"Sixty-seven years ago, audiences had to come to one spot to view films. Now, our films are distributed across Canada and are viewed in many different ways on many different screens," says Randy Goulden, executive director of the YFF. Almost 18,000 people viewed films through the festival and its DVD tour in 2012-13.
Another program that builds both audiences and the film industry is the annual High School Student Day. Through a partnership with Sacred Heart High School in Yorkton, the YFF recruits 60 young people from across Saskatchewan to work with professional filmmakers. In just one day, small groups of students make their own films, learning scriptwriting, cinematography and editing as they go.
In 2012, the festival partnered with the Ministry of Education to offer the first live broadcast of High School Student Day throughout the province, adding an interactive element in 2013 that allows students participating at a distance to ask questions. "This is something that the festival's founding volunteers would never even have dreamed of," Goulden says.
In the coming years, Goulden hopes to expand the festival's outreach activities through new collaborations. "We start working with one person and they have ties to another organization and it just builds. The creativity and the innovation of the people in the industry have helped the festival not just to survive but really thrive in some challenging times."
The 2014 Yorkton Film Festival will take place May 22-25.
The Yorkton Film Festival is supported by Multi-year funding from the SaskFestivals program, which is funded in part through the financial assistance of SaskCulture Inc, with funding from the Saskatchewan Lotteries Trust Fund for Sport, Culture and Recreation.
First page: Neil Huber, director of I Kill Monsters, receives the Digital Media award at the Golden Sheaf Awards.
Top: Students learn to make their own films at the YFF's High School Student Day.
Right: Cory Generoux of the National Film Board accepts the Animation award for Wild Life.
Photos by Stacy Barber.