The Saskatchewan Arts Awards celebrates the achievements by individuals, groups and organizations in the arts, across disciplines. This year, a local organization has taken The Yorkton Film Festival is one of the organizations recognized in the 2016 awards ceremony, taking home the award for Leadership - Organization.
Randy Goulden, executive director of the Yorkton Film Festival, says that they were honored just to be nominated for the award, so to actually take home the award is something they are proud to achieve.
“When Minister Ken Cheveldayoff presented the award to Richard Gustin, one of our co-chairs, he was very appreciative of what the festival has done in the province.”
This award comes on the eve of celebrations for the festival, as they enter into their 70th anniversary year. While the anniversary year recognizes the festival’s history, Goulden says the plan for the festival is to move towards the next seventy years.
“Our programming is going to be about what comes next in film. Where do we need to grow our festival but also be leaders in the field and help professional development of filmmakers, especially emerging filmmakers.”
The award comes with a prize of $6,000, which Goulden says is very important to the festival as they plan for upcoming programming.
“Sustainability in any arts organization is always a concern. This is going to help us program for the upcoming year.”
The credit for the award is shared among everyone who has worked with the festival, Goulden says, whether it’s the staff at the office in town, board members, committee members, the juries that adjudicate the festival, local volunteers who help put it on each May, or groups like the Yorkton Lions who have been an integral part of the annual Lobsterfest and who Goulden says has been an important partner for the YFF.
“It’s so interesting because we’re known as the Yorkton Film Festival, but our reach is all across Canada. We have one of the most rigorously adjudicated competitions in all film festivals in North America. We have juries across Canada who adjudicate the films, and in each jury there are five members of the film industry who are professionals... Those are volunteers that we have, they do it free of charge, we provide them with some lunch.”
Part of the reason for the award was the work the festival does each year, screening films across Canada, from major centres to small towns in Saskatchewan.
“All of this comes from the Golden Sheaf Awards, because we have to have the films that people are interested in. The 200 plus films that we get every year, whether they win or not, we’re screening those films across Canada.”
She also extends her congratulations to the other nominees, the Globe Theatre in Regina and the Station Arts Centre in Rosthern. Goulden says that the other nominees have been well known for their leadership and to be mentioned in the same category as both was already an honor.
