Douglas will receive the Northwestel Community TV Prize of $5000 cash and $2500+ in-kind production services from Yukon Film Society towards the production of his dramatic short.Īs previously announced, this year, Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) was thrilled to award $10,000 in cash prizes to three outstanding films by underrepresented filmmakers with films in Official Selection at ALFF 2021: The Made In the North Award presented by Canada Goose (MINA) for Best Canadian Feature film went to the coming of age drama, Beans by Mohawk filmmaker, Tracey Deer. The pitch for Douglas’ project Sheka Dizhi closely won out in a field of six outstanding projects pitched by a diversity of teams from Whitehorse and Dawson City. The ALFF Pitch Prize was awarded to Douglas Joe at the ALFF 2021 Short Film Pitch Event on Tuesday February 9.
All artist talks, panels and virtual events such Available light Cabaret concerts and the Dinner and a Movie cooking class with Toronto Chef Luke Donato were available worldwide and as such, ALFF content reached audiences in eight other countries. About 70% of all the content on ALFF online was available to Canadian audiences. Of the 1300 households that streamed films and events on ALFF Online, 372 of those were households outside Yukon and the NWT with the greatest viewership in southern Canada coming from British Columbia, which constituted 10% of online ticket sales. With the move to presenting ALFF virtually, the festival was able to reach new audiences across Canada by screening right in their homes. This concert preceded the in-cinema screening of the ALFF opening film, Beans and made for a memorable festival opening night. For this year’s ALFF Opening Night at the Yukon Arts Centre, Music Yukon helped the festival present Whitehorse-based electronic musician, Jeremy Parkin who performed live to a video he had assembled using footage he shot on VHS tapes this past summer. Overall highlights included: 13 sold out in-cinema events at the Yukon Arts Centre, 73 films were screened, including 8 world premieres, 3 filmmakers from diverse communities received the newly launched Made in the North Award and parity of overall programming was gender equal. Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowanĪttendance to this year’s Available Light was a very different experience with two thirds of the program streaming virtually and one third experienced in-person.
The Top Ten ALFF Audience Choice films were:Ħ. Elizabeth Lo), and The Painter and the Thief (Dir. The International films with the highest audience numbers were My Donkey, My Lover and I (Dir. Ruth Lawrence) and My Salinger Year (Philip Falardeau). The other Canadian films that brought out the biggest audiences were Monkey Beach (Loretta S Todd), Shiva Baby (Dir. Tracey Deer’s coming of age drama set during the 1990 Oka Crisis was the hit of ALFF 2021 and drew the biggest audiences alongside local favourite, First We Eat, Suzanne Crocker’s eating local in Dawson City film, which is the ALFF Audience Choice best film for Best Canadian Feature Documentary. The winner of the Made in the North Award Best Feature, Beans was also the audience favourite overall film and the ALFF Audience Choice Best Canadian Feature Fiction. The actual number of people who enjoyed ALFF programming this year likely exceeds 8000 admissions since ALFF Online content was watched by more than one person in many of the households where streaming took place.Īudiences at in-cinema screenings and streaming from home were asked to rate every film they watched in order to determine the ALFF Audience Choice Awards winners. Attendance of these events included: 4600 event/film streams, 1120 admissions to in-cinema events and 400 patrons engaging with media art exhibition throughout the city for a total of more than 6000 admissions. Whitehorse, Yukon (March 1, 2021) The 19 th annual Available Light Film Festival sparked audiences and filmmakers in an exciting 18 days of cinema, networking, concerts and filmmaker talks over 80+ virtual and in-person events. News Available Light Film Festival 2021 Audience Choice Winners and Recap March 2, 2021Īvailable Light Film Festival 2021 hybrid event successfully launches online and finds new audiences across Canada