The popcorn was buttery and the films were first-rate on Sunday night at Yellowknife’s Capitol Theatre.
A sold-out crowd enjoyed seven short films from northern filmmakers during the final screening of the 18th Yellowknife International Film Festival.
Among the pictures featured on the big screen was Edaxàdets’eetè/We Save Ourselves, from Yellowknife-based Tłı̨chǫ filmmaker Sadetło Scott. The five-minute documentary explores the connection between Indigenous language revitalization and climate action.
“I hope that people come away thinking about how important that is,” Scott told reporters ahead of the screening. “That revitalization of languages, Indigenous languages in particular, really is such an important thing that we need to be focusing more on.”
Scott was one of several filmmakers selected for the 2023 Witness film training and mentorship program, which supports Arctic Indigenous filmmakers to make short films focused on climate and community. She said Yellowknife’s wildfire-related evacuation took place while she was in Norway as part of that program, which changed her approach to making her film.
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“I was really lucky to have such a supportive group there who just uplifted me in a very stressful time,” she said.
Also in attendance at Sunday night’s screening was Jonathan Antoine, a Dehcho Dene filmmaker from Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́, Fort Simpson.
His film – Hunting in the Dehcho, which follows Ricky Tsetso and Errol Villeneuve hunting for moose in the Dehcho region – had its world premiere at the Capitol Theatre.
“Two years ago I was hunting with my friends and then I just thought that it should be a documentary,” Antoine said.
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“It’s just a celebration of what they’re doing, that they’re still carrying on this Dene traditional hunting knowledge that was passed down from their parents and their grandparents.”
Antoine is next headed to Los Angeles to screen Hunting in the Dehcho at the LA Skins Film Festival later this month.
Another film shown on Sunday was The Copper People. Blending live action and animation, it explores the Yellowknives Dene First Nation’s connection to Chief Drygeese Territory and the cultural and historical significance of the land.
Artless Collective’s Jay Bulckaert, who directed The Copper People, said the Yellowknives Dene First Nation asked his company to bring the First Nation’s brochure of the same name to the screen.
He said the intent of the film is to introduce anyone new to the territory to Yellowknives Dene culture and history
“If people are working here, if mine operations are working here … they could send something to people and showcase in a quick way – in a very engaging, entertaining way – what their history and connection is to the land,” he said.
Animator Lucas Green helped bring Yellowknife artist Alison McCreesh’s illustrations from the brochure to life for the short film.
“While I was working on the film, it would just increase my fandom for Alison’s work and a lot of the other artists up here,” said Green, who is based in Vancouver.
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Artless Collective worked on several other films screened at this year’s film festival. The multimedia company, co-founded by Bulckaert and Pablo Saravanja, took home the Northern Filmmaker Award for the Behchokǫ̀ Wildfire Evacuation, co-produced with the Tłı̨chǫ Government.
Sunday’s northern film program featured two shorts about snowboarding in the NWT.
Welcome to the Pit, directed by Seth Gillis, tells the story of Yellowknife’s Bristol Pit, while Gill Crescent by Finn Westbury explores Olympian Liam Gill’s relationship with the NWT.
Two more films that screened on Sunday were The Medzih Story: Restoring a Caribou Landscape, a documentary by Trevor Dixon Bennett and Ryan Dickie about the Fort Nelson First Nation’s efforts to restore industrially impacted land to help stabilize the boreal caribou population, and Datrin/The Raven by Douglas Joe, where a Gwich’in Elder recounts a dream of the last remaining raven.
For people that missed some of the most popular films or want to watch them again, encore screenings – including of the northern short film program – are taking place between Tuesday and Thursday.
