Available Light Film Festival 2020

WELCOME TO ALFF 2020 Welcome to the 18th Available Light Film Festival! (We are happy to see all of you) The ALFF 2020 Opening Gala Film, Red Snow, will be presented with writer and director Marie Clements and lead actor, Asivak Koostachin in attendance. This award-winning drama set in the Northwest Territories and Afghanistan, boasts one of the most diverse casts of any Canadian feature film this year and was filmed in four languages.

Canadian films and media art take centre stage at ALFF. Our partnership with La Tournée Québec Cinéma has increased to co-presenting six feature films from Quebec this year. Several of these films were selected for TIFF’s Top Ten films of 2019 and make up three of the eight TIFF Top Ten films we’re presenting at ALFF 2020; including Zacharias Kunuk’s latest film One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk, and films such as Anne at 13,000 ft., Murmur, The Twentieth Century and White Lie. The Yukon Film Society is honoured to host many talented story-tellers at ALFF: star of stage and screen, Michael Greyeyes, Anishanaabe comedian and media-maker, Ryan McMahon, TIFF 2019 Rising Star, actor Kacey Rohl, Canadian filmmakers: Mira Burt-Wintonick, Kazik Radwanksi, Louise Archambault, Charles Wilkinson, Matthew Rankin, John Price, John Walker, Jonathan Frantz and Aaron Zeghers to name a few (see the full list on page 51). This year we’re hosting 40+ filmmakers, industry representatives, performing and visual artists from NWT, Yukon, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia and Nova Scotia.

We’re also happy to announce that more than 50% of the films we’re presenting are femaleled and directed productions. A commitment to gender equity in film needs to happen in the cinema and not just on set. There will be 71 films screened at ALFF, 12 of which will be world premieres.

The 2020 ALFF Program includes live performances in the Old Fire Hall and our late night venue – ALFF Space – in the Edgewater Hotel. Another special activity at ALFF 2020 is a day of free screenings of salient Indigenous cinema in partnership with the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre on Saturday, February 1st.

We could not present this multi-faceted nine-day festival without the generous support of our festival partners Yukon Energy and Best Western Gold Rush Inn. Thank you to Government of Yukon, Yukon Media Development, the presenting partner of the adjacent ALFF Industry conference (the 11th annual!) This support enables YFS to host decision-makers and industry delegates and to present workshops and master classes with creators who have honed their craft over many decades of filmmaking. Please join us in thanking all the artists, filmmakers and industry representatives for sharing their work and experience at ALFF and ALFF Industry, as well as the sponsors, community organizations and hard-working volunteers and staff that make Available Light 2020 possible.

Shäw níthän, Gunalchîsh, Mahsi cho, merci, gracias, chi miigwech, Salamat and thank you for coming to Available Light and making this a special community event every Yukon winter.

Vivian Belik, Co-programmer + Industry Programmer Andrew Connors, Festival Director 7