Film fest starts tomorrow

It is one of the most anticipated events on the Yorkton calendar and has been now for 66 years.

The Yorkton Film Festival is once again upon us.

In 1950, three years after the founding of the Yorkton Film Council, the city hosted the first festival. It was a two-day gathering in October held at the York Theatre and City Hall Auditorium.

Since then, the event has gone through some format changes, but it remains the longest running celebration of film in North America.

This year’s edition of the festival kicks off tomorrow with the annual High School Student Day during which filmmakers in town for the weekend coach local youth in the basics of bringing stories to life on screen.

Thursday, the festival officially gets under way with the opening screening at Painted Hand Casino. This year features a made-in-Saskatchewan film that is making some waves on the festival circuit.

The Sabbatical is a comedy starring James Whittingham and Laura Abramsen about a burned-out photography professor who goes on sabbatical only to find himself embroiled in a mid-life crisis involving a free-spirited, young, female artist.

It was filmed entirely in Regina.

The film won an honourable mention at the 2015 Whistler Film Festival and was also a selection for 2016 Canadian Film Fest in Toronto.

The perennial festival favourite Lobsterfest—unique to Yorkton with its east coast crustaceans in the most landlocked place in the country accompanied by skeet shooting (what?)—goes Friday night. The after party usually winds up at the CI, which urbane filmmakers find rustically authentic, apparently.

Film screenings and industry panels, of course, run all day Friday and Saturday at the Gallagher Centre leading up to the Gala where the Golden Sheaf Awards will be handed out Saturday evening. The Festival also has its Mini Cinema, a room full of screens with headphones where all the festival selections can be watched on demand.

All film screenings are open to the public free of charge.

In conjunction with the YFF, the Western Development Museum is getting in on the act as well. Over the summer the museum will screen Festival selections on June 5, June 26, July 3 and July 17.