Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival
Encyclopedia
The Yorkton Film Festival, also known as the Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, is a film festival
in Yorkton, Saskatchewan
.
It was Canada
's first film festival and bills itself the as longest running film festival in North America
. It was established in 1947 as the Yorkton Film Council, with the first festival held in 1950. Initially known as the Yorkton International Documentary Film Festival, it was run by the Yorkton Film Council until that body disbanded in 1971. Since then, the Yorkton International Film Festival Society has run the event, which has gone through several changes of name and mission. In 1977, the festival stopped showing non-Canadian films.
field officer at the time, stationed in Saskatchewan with a mandate to set up film councils. Hearing about an arts festival being held in Europe, as well as music and science festivals in other parts of Canada, he developed the idea for a film festival in Yorkton.
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
in Yorkton, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
.
It was Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's first film festival and bills itself the as longest running film festival in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. It was established in 1947 as the Yorkton Film Council, with the first festival held in 1950. Initially known as the Yorkton International Documentary Film Festival, it was run by the Yorkton Film Council until that body disbanded in 1971. Since then, the Yorkton International Film Festival Society has run the event, which has gone through several changes of name and mission. In 1977, the festival stopped showing non-Canadian films.
Golden Sheaf Awards
The Yorkton Film Festival presents the Golden Sheaf Awards in 21 categories, as of 2009. The festival's top award is "Best of Festival," for best overall entry.List of Best of Festival winners
- 2011: Lipsett DiariesLipsett DiariesLipsett Diaries is a 2010 short animated documentary about the life and art of troubled experimental filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, animated and directed by Theodore Ushev and written by Chris Robinson...
- 2010: Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland
- 2009: Norm
- 2008: Terminus
Founding
The festival was the idea of James Lysyshyn, referred to as the "father of the Yorkton International Documentary Film Festival". Lysyshyn was a young National Film Board of CanadaNational Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
field officer at the time, stationed in Saskatchewan with a mandate to set up film councils. Hearing about an arts festival being held in Europe, as well as music and science festivals in other parts of Canada, he developed the idea for a film festival in Yorkton.