This year’s edition of the Yellowknife International Film Festival is right around the corner, featuring more than a dozen films screening online and in person.
Between November 6 and 10, 2024, movies from 11 countries will screen at Yellowknife’s Capitol Theatre, including several from northern filmmakers.
This year’s festival menu includes five online documentaries, nine in-person feature films and four in-person short film programs.
The festival will open with Universal Language, an absurdist comedy-drama directed by Matthew Rankin.
Festival highlights include:
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- The Death Tour – a documentary following professional wrestlers on tour including Inuvik’s Dez Loreen aka Deztro the Eskimofo;
- The G – a dark thriller about a grandmother seeking revenge;
- Colourful Quebec – a program featuring seven French-language films from the province (with English subtitles);
- Forest Fires and People – a program featuring a documentary about Behchokǫ̀’s evacuation along with the documentary Fire Tower by Tova Krentzman; and
- Northern Life – a short film program featuring seven films from the NWT and Yukon, including Welcome to the Pit directed by Seth Gillis, Gill Crescent by Finn Westbury, Hunting in the Dehcho by Jonathan Antoine, Datrin/The Raven by Douglas Joe, Edaxàdets’eetè/We Save Ourselves by Sadetło Scott, The Medzih Story: Restoring a Caribou Landscape by Trevor Dixon Bennett and Ryan Dickie, and YKDFN – The Copper People.
Other films showing include Tea Creek; Bring Them Home; Us, Our Pets and the War; Stealing Vows; Legion 44; and the short film programs From the Heart and Transient.
Festival tickets and more information about films and showtimes are available on Wamp’s website.
This year’s festival will feature a free event in conversation with the creative team behind the film adaptation of Richard Van Camp’s Inkwo for When the Starving Return, including Van Camp, Amanda Strong and Georgina Franki. Tickets for the event, which is scheduled for 7pm on November 7 at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, are available online.
New to this year’s festival, the NWT Film Commission will be presenting a Local Filmmaking Award. The juried award will be presented to an NWT filmmaker on November 10 after the northern short film screening at the Capitol Theatre.
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A Saturday Soiree will be held at the Top Knight on November 9, beginning at 9pm, with musical performances by Stray Dogs and Parts in celebration of filmmakers with work showing at this year’s festival.
Other festival events include a table read, a pitch competition and workshops.
Called an “industry forum,” various professional development opportunities run from November 8-10 at the Explorer Hotel.
The forum will start off with a live table read – featuring three local scripts read aloud to live music – on November 2.
Northwestel’s annual Pitch This competition – where hopeful filmmakers pitch their ideas to a panel of judges, trying to win $5,000 and a year of free equipment to complete their project – will take place on November 8 at the Elks Club.
Also on the weekend’s agenda are a puppet-making workshop, stop-motion animation workshop, and sessions on pitching, writing, and editing.
Sessions specifically for Indigenous and Northern creators will be held on the Saturday and Sunday, as well as a session focused on climate stories and sustainable production.
Rounding things off is an industry mixer on Sunday night.
People can purchase industry event passes as well as tickets to individual events online.
