The Alchemy of ALFF
ALFF has evolved into a two-week, 100-plus film event. There are 45 feature- and mid-length films, over 50 short films, live concerts…
ALFF "Available Light Film Festival"
ALFF 2022 goes online
A few of the the diverse offerings at the 2022 Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) happening online, and maybe a bit in-person.
Sharing a love for film
There are meetings. There is paperwork. There are grants to apply for and cheques to sign. But, for Jessica Hall, being the president of the Yukon Film Society is all about… people. “The thing I really like about being on the board is my fellow board members and the staff,” she said. “They are all …
Let there be light
The 2018 Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) features a strong Indigenous presence in this year’s films – and in the audience, with more than 40 guests attending from Outside.
It’s so bad, it’s good
In honour of James Franco’s upcoming film release of The Disaster Artist, I figured I had to take a look back at where this film actually started, and that meant watching The Room (2003). The Disaster Artist is a dramatization of The Room. The Room is written, directed, produced and stars Tommy Wiseau and is …
Off the page and onto the screen
Get your cameras rolling and warm up your gear because the annual Yukon 48-Hour Filmmaking Challenge starts on Friday, January 12. It’s a yearly team-up between the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture in Dawson City and the Yukon Film Society in Whitehorse. The event gives participants two days to complete a short film with …
Celebrating Film During the Atlin Arts and Music Festival
New projector at the Globe Theatre 2017 when the Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) takes its films to the Atlin Arts and Music Festival.
Yukon Stories
Arctic Secrets Directed by Allan Code, a Whitehorse based filmmaker, Arctic Secrets is a symphony of immensely strong and surprisingly fragile elements that comprise the wilderness of the Yukon Territory. Stunning imagery abounds in this visual adventure through its waters, mountains, and forests. Focusing mainly on the more arctic regions of the territory, Code and …
Writing Down the Soul
Anyone who has ever put pen to paper knows it can be a daunting experience. To stare at a blank page waiting for the strike of inspiration. When something is finally put down on paper, is it something others might want to read? What works? What can be done differently? Brave New Words is a …
Yukon 48 hour Film Challenge Back Again this Year
If you’ve always wanted the challenge of making a film in a short amount of time, here’s your chance. The Yukon 48 Hour Film Challenge, hosted by the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) and the Yukon Film Society, will once again be offering filmmakers of all ages a chance to test their mettle …
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A Room within a Room
The intensely charged film Room was the Winner of the Audience Choice Award for Best Canadian Feature at this year’s Available Light Film Festival. If you missed it in February, The Yukon Film Society is bringing it back to the screen March 20th. Adapted from Ireland-born writer Emma Donoghue’s Booker Prize nominated novel of the …
Valentine’s Events for the Discerning Singleton
I have mined to come up with activities that might make Valentines Day as awesome as any other day of the year, even if you’re flying solo.
Hone Your Craft
This year marks the 14th anniversary of the Available Light Film Festival. Each year, the festival seems to grow and attract greater talent from a variety of places. This year also has a substantial amount of filmmaking workshops, some free and others requiring tickets. The festival’s keynote address will be from Dylan Marchetti, chief creative …
Cinema for Lunch
The Available Light Film Festival running Feb. 6–14 there will be showing films during the daytime, right in the middle of your lunch hour. So pack a sandwich or a smoothie and head over to either the Yukon Arts Centre or the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre for some truly fascinating cinema. Here is a rundown …
Awesome Canadian Films
For years Canadian cinema was referred to as invisible cinema for its lack of global impact and struggle to compete with Hollywood’s massive export of blockbuster films. Each year film festivals around Canada aim to disprove this notion and push the potential and visibility of Canadian cinema to other parts of the world – and …
Available Light Film Fest shines on Canada’s North
This year’s Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) features a series of films draw audiences’ attention to the experiences of life in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The North on Screen series comprises a third of the Yukon Film Society’s 14th Annual film festival, which runs Feb. 7 to 14 in Whitehorse. Nunavut Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner) returns …
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Holiday Gift Guide
As we enter the holiday season where advertising, social media, and storefronts are shouting at us about all the things there are to buy, one might wonder whether all this shopping will lead to anyone’s happiness. Researchers out of Cornell University had a similar thought. Thomas Gilovich and Amit Kumar published their research in the …
Deep Ecology
The year was 1971. Three Dog Nights’ “Joy to the World” became RPM’s top chart hit alongside The Stampeders’ “Sweet City Woman”. Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister and James Smith was Commissioner of the Yukon. Smith was instrumental in creating the Kluane National Park and Reserves and designating the Chilkoot Trail as a National Historic …
Unravelling the layers of existence
A brilliantly layered and sensitive look at the contrasting stages of life, the 2014 film The Clouds of Sils Maria stars Juliette Binoche as Maria Enders, an accomplished stage actress who becomes painfully aware of the relationships between herself and the characters she portrays when she is asked to perform in the play that kick-started …
The beauty and the decay of life around the planet
Since being presented the Palme D’Or and Best Director credits at the Cannes Film Festival for Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987) respectively, German filmmaker Wim Wenders continues to be intrigued by the human condition has ceased to allow his intrigue of the human condition to weaken. Wenders’ more recent films Buena Vista …
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Flowers in the Concrete
Rich Hill, playing at the Yukon Arts Centre on Sunday, is a poignant observational snapshot of three boys on separate, but similar, journeys through the early days of youth, as spent in America’s povertystricken heartland. Poverty is crushing. But it’s always amazing to see that the human spirit, especially in children, is remarkably diffi cult …
East Coasters Come North
When I reach Jon Mckiel he’s in the middle of a New Brunswick snowstorm. I’m in the Yukon, where the temperature has dipped below -30°C. We talk about what to expect when he arrives in Whitehorse to perform at the Available Light Film Festival on February 13. He’s never been here, and I’ve never been …
ALFF Breakdown, Part Two
Thursday, February 12th The day kicks off with the festival’s final installment of the Fire Hall Film Talks, a series of free lunchtime discussions between filmmakers and artists about behind-the-scene development of projects. Thursday’s talk is on the changing face of music videos and narrative film. Panelists are singer-songwriter John Southworth; Violent director and member …
Film Festival Round Up: Part One
The 2015 Available Light Film Festival is bringing a jam-packed program to Yukon Arts Centre this February. The first half of the festival, Feb 7 to Feb 11, is covered here. Itinerary from Feb 12 to Feb 16 will be in next week’s paper. Prices of events may vary. Get your day planners ready — …
Tanya Tagaq Reclaims Stories of her People
For those who missed Tanya Tagaq on stage at music festivals in Dawson and Atlin, the Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) is giving Yukoners another chance to experience this acclaimed musician’s work on February 10 at the Yukon Arts Centre. Tagaq rocketed onto radar-screens last year when her newest album, Animism, won the 2014 Polaris …
Two 4 One Breaks New Ground
Move over Ben Affleck and Julia Roberts, the Canadian filmmaking world would like to thank you for solidifying conventions for the romantic comedy genre, so Two 4 One can break those conventions into a million pieces. This progressive look at real-life love is refreshing and accessible: a movie about a transgendered Canadian in which an …
The Wooden Sky Kicks Off ALFF
For Yukoners who miss having a music festival in February, the Yukon Film Society has stepped up. This year, the Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) has expanded to include musical performances. Andrew Connors, ALFF director, explains: “It’s twofold. We realized that the way we configure the Yukon Arts Centre for cinema, we move the screen …
Imagination and pain on display in Newfoundland yarn
Joel Thomas Hynes’s blackly tinted, yet poignantly observant perspective, brings you his best film yet. Cast No Shadow, playing at the Yukon Arts Centre on February 10, is a beautifully filmed narrative about the most terrifying demon of all: the one within. Set in the ever-shadowy outport Newfoundland, a world of dilapidated musty kitchens and …
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The Scientific Lens
The Yukon Film Society and Yukon Arts Centre present the return of the Available Light Cinema series on Sunday, September 21 with two films of the scientific variety. The science fiction film screening at 9:00 p.m. is Jonathan Glazer’s chilling parable Under the Skin. Scarlett Johansson stars in it, and it has been compared to …
A Flood of Activities
The middle of March is important for more than just spring break — it also marks Canada Water Week. Described as the week to celebrate water across the nation, Canada Water Week is held annually in the third week of March, coinciding with the United Nations’ International World Water Day on March 22. Heather Jirousek …
More Quality Films to See on a Big Screen
Fresh from one of its most successful festivals to date, the Yukon Film Society presents a trio of superb films in its monthly Available Light Cinema series, March 22 and 23. Headlining the bill is the triple-Oscar winning Twelve Years A Slave, followed by award-winning documentary Cutie And The Boxer, and a new Coen Brothers …
Gearing up for 48 Hours of Filming Madness
The date may have changed this year, but the timing is the same. Contestants in the Yukon 48 Challenge still have just 48 hours to devise, film and edit a short film for presentation. While usually held in January, this edition of the contest will take place Nov. 15 to 17 in both Dawson and …
The three faces behind the Yukon Film Society: There’s more than one way to eat popcorn
A group of movie lovers gathers on a frigid Sunday in Whitehorse. In an apartment living room, they watch movies and eat popcorn. They laugh with a good comedy and are swept away with a gripping drama. But the home of Yukon Film Society president Michael Vernon is not being used just for a good …
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The Good, the Old and the Creepy: A look at the Available Light Cinema’s eclectic new season
Andrew Connors has you in mind. All of you. And it isn’t even creepy. Well some of it is — like Upstream Colour — but most of it is just harmless fun. “Diversity in programming was the point,” says the Yukon Film Society’s executive director about this fall’s Available Light Cinema roster. “We are trying …
Available Light Film Festival promises great stories, great film
For the sixth year, Northern film buffs will have the chance to “reconnect with the world and immerse themselves in great film”. Andrew Connors, the director of the annual Available Light Film Festival (ALFF), is satisfied he and his volunteers have found enough feature films to satisfy its mandate of telling great stories. If one …
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‘How People Got Fire’ premieres at ALFF
It’s been three years, but How People Got Fire is ready for its world premiere at the Available Light Film Festival. “I started calling it, ‘How People Finally Got Fire’,” says Daniel Janke with a tone of weary fun. Janke, the writer/composer/director, is better known as a composer of contemporary music and creator of the …
2009 ALFF is bigger and better
Andrew Connors is very pleased with his 32-page program for the upcoming Available Light Film Festival. “Last year, it was 24 pages,” says the festival’s director. He explains that there are only slightly more films being presented this year. The difference is in the “value-added events”. Connors says these include panel discussions, information sessions and …
Local Filmmaker Chronicles Extraordinary Journey
Mike Faughey-Scraggs is an orthopedic surgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospital in England. He’s a former high diver and an experienced mountaineer, having scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. In the summer of 2008, he participated in the grueling Yukon River Quest, paddling his one-man kayak from Whitehorse to Dawson City. Added to these impressive qualifications is …
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Indo-Canadian Filmmakers Shine a Light on Contemporary India
Tickets are on sale now for the Yukon Film Society’s annual Available Light Film Festival, which takes place Feb. 4 to 10 at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse. Among the lineup are two films by Indo-Canadian filmmakers delving deep into the culture of contemporary India. Midnight’s Children Midnight’s Children is Deepa Mehta’s newest effort. …
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Available Light Film Festival shines on unique films
A powerful film about grassroots-level punk music in a religion not traditionally open to diverse musical tastes, Islam, blends with a heartfelt, passionate documentary following a young woman with cystic fibrosis. On the surface, these films are unrelated, but their beauty and truth have led to them being carefully handpicked for the Available Light Film …
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2011 ALFF at a Glance
Among the 25 international and Canadian features at next week’s Available Light Film festival are four of the films the Toronto International Film Festival ranked as “Canada’s top ten” for 2010 (www.tiff.net/topten.ca). The Yukon Film Society’s ninth annual festival will also offer the official selections from three countries for the 2011 Academy Award for best …
New Option for Film Fans
Whitehorse filmgoers have a new monthly option to indulge their tastes. The Yukon Film Society (YFS) and the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) have teamed up to present the Available Light Cinema series, starting this Sunday. “This is a vision that I’ve had for a few years, based on the response to the Available Light Film …
People and the Land
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Yukon Film Society’s Available Light Film Festival, highlighting an impressive array of more than 30 feature films ranging from documentaries to political thrillers to comedies, with a fiercely Canadian – and international – scope. One of the overriding themes clearly apparent from a survey of the festival’s …