The Yorkton Film Festival is launching a new program aimed primarily at introducing them to film.
Canada 150 – With Open Arms is a youth film project that will solicit submissions from across Canada. For children and youth in elementary school, the films will be a showcase project with submissions having the chance to be screened at upcoming Yorkton Film Festivals. For high school students, the films will submitted as a contest with winning entries being broadcast through City Saskatchewan and Rogers.
“Canada is a nation of diverse stories; and we wanted to plan a project that gave youth throughout the country a chance to tell some of their stories,” said Executive Director Randy Goulden when the youth film project was announced at an afternoon press conference on Dec. 20, with Yorkton-Melville Member of Parliament Cathy Wagantall also on hand for the announcement.
The new project moved forward when it was recently announced the Yorkton Film Festival was a recipient of $30,000 in Canada 150 Funding, through Heritage Canada, to undertake projects to celebrate Canada’s 150th. The festival has previously announced a screening project to take place across Canada as the first component of this funding project. In addition to the screening project, the festival is also hosting an ambitious youth film project.
“We were absolutely thrilled when we heard the news,” said Goulden.
“I’m just really pleased to see funding come to Yorkton,” offered Wagantall, adding the grant shows “a lot of confidence in what is done here.”
Goulden said the Open Arms Project will “be focused on diversity … really looking at our history and our shared future with a diversity theme.”
The project, a highlight for the YFF in its 70th year, will have three distinct elements, added Goulden.
The first will see the Film Festival working with high schools across Western Canada to teach students about film, culminating with students producing films based “on what they feel is diversity.”
The films will be judged, with the top film broadcast via Rogers.
A second element will work with elementary schools, with workshops for Kindergarten through Grade 8.
And finally Canadian films will be screened across Canada, including a Jan. 10 showing of ‘Library of Voices,’ in Yorkton.
Then on Saturday, Jan. 14, an event will be held at the Yorkton Public Library to share local stories with 16 diverse individuals from tattoo artist ‘Driller’, to Rev. Richard Gibson, to Andrew Sedley, Arliss Dellow, and a recent immigrant couple from Jamaica.
Telling our stories has always been a part of Canada’s heritage, suggested Wagantall.
“Equipping and encouraging film-makers from our diverse communities to share their own stories in new and creative ways is something Yorkton Film Festival does with excellence. I’m thrilled to see our youth encouraged in this way, and look forward to seeing the results of this ambitious and exciting Canada 150 – With Open Arms project,” she said in a release.
More information about the youth film projects can be found on the festival website (www.yorktonfilm.com), along with information on how films can be submitted. Submissions will run until March 15 for the film competition portion for high school students; and until April 1 for the film showcase portion.
