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.[1]
Contents |
The Yorkton Film Festival presents the Golden Sheaf Awards in 21 categories, as of 2009.[2] The festival's top award is "Best of Festival," for best overall entry.
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 Canada 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.[4]