A new club celebrating Canadian film will launch in Yorkton next Wednesday.

The Yorkton ‘Real’ Film Club will hold its first evening of film at the Yorkton Public Library, where film from the Yorkton Film Festival archives will be viewed and discussed.

Elwyn Vermette is one of the event organizers. He said the idea is a new one for the city in spite of the Festival’s long history.

“The Festival actually started out being a film club sponsored by the National Film Board,” he said, but added there hasn’t been a film club dedicated to viewing and discussing film before.

So why now?

Vermette said it just seemed like a good time to make use of a huge resource in the city, the Film Festival’s library of past entries.

“The biggest reason, they’ve got a real good library of festival entries,” he said, adding “they’ve sat and gathered dust.”

The film club will allow at least some of the films to get dusted off and viewed.

Vermette said they plan three evenings of film this year, starting Wednesday, Jan. 29, and then Feb. 27, and March 27.

“It’s to screen film and then have a discussion,” he said, adding some films should generat good discourse among viewers.

The January screening will be the 2005 Saskatchewan-produced documentary Escape From Iran: The Hollywood Option.

Vermette said the film is significant as it marked “the 25th anniversary of the actual event where six American Embassy people were taken into the Canadian Embassy (in Iran).

“And then the fun begins.”

The documentary is interesting as it offers a different perspective of the historic events from that of Argo, a recent Hollywood release which uses the events in what Vermette terms a “suspense thriller” from a CIA operative’s perspective.

Vermette added the documentary to be screened by the new club “was suspenseful in its own right.”

Vermette said while an earlier documentary; The Canadian Caper, made shortly after the events was limited by gag orders on many of those involved, Escape From Iran: The Hollywood Option does not have those constraints. He said President Bill Clinton “released people from the gag order,” so the more recent film has a broader story to tell.

The film also benefits from reflective interviews with people involved like former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark, federal minister Flora MacDonald and American president Jimmy Carter.

Looking ahead, the group will screen the documentary Norm in February and look at humour in film in March.

For more information contact the Yorkton Public Library or Yorkton Film Festival.