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ALFF 2021: Online Passes On-Sale + First Film Highlights

December 7, 2020

Available Light Film Festival 2021: Online Passes On-Sale + First Film Highlights

Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, December 07, 2020

The Yukon Film Society is pleased to announce the 19th annual Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) will run from February 5 to February 15, 2021 and will feature both in-cinema and online programming. With a limited number of in-cinema screenings this year, the festival will be offering an All-Access Online Pass (in lieu of the usual 5 & 10-Film Passes). Pass holders will have access to the 60+ titles streaming online and will receive discounts on regular-priced tickets available for the 15 in-cinema events.

All-Access Online Passes go on sale December 8th, and $90 Early Bird pricing is in effect until December 31st. To learn more about purchasing festival passes and tickets, please visit https://yukonfilmsociety.com/alff/tickets.

ALFF 2021 highlights Indigenous and Circumpolar cinema alongside Canadian and International films, with 60+ in-cinema and online events. The concurrent ALFF Industry conference will present speakers and decision-makers from across Canada.

A pair of Indigenous women filmmakers leads the bill of Canadian films this year. Mohawk writer/ director Tracey Deer’s powerful feature Beans is a coming of age drama set against the backdrop of the 1990 Oka Crisis, experienced through the perspective of a 12-year old Mohawk girl. Beans won Best Canadian Feature Film at the 2020 Vancouver International Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival’s Emerging Talent Award. Métis/Cree filmmaker Loretta Todd’s much-anticipated feature film adaptation, Monkey Beach, (based on the award-winning novel by Eden Robinson) also sweeps the screen. Set in the Haisla village of Kitamaat, BC, and amidst breathtaking views, a young Haisla woman with the ability to commune with the dead returns from the city and learns to embrace her medicine power.  Monkey Beach has been met with overwhelming acclaim, selling out in theatres across Canada that have been able to offer in-cinema screenings.

Canadian documentaries also figure prominently in ALFF 2021.  We are proud to feature two documentaries by Yukon filmmakers, to be shown in-cinema at ALFF 2021: Suzanne Crocker’s award-winning First We Eat about a Dawson family’s challenge to eat only locally grown food for a year will be the closing film of ALFF 2021. Marty O’Brien and Naomi Mark’s The Arctics, a circumpolar-trotting documentary about the impact and cultural imperative of young athletes coming together for the 50th Anniversary Arctic Winter Games, which was cancelled due to the global health crisis. The New Corporation: the Unfortunately Necessary Sequel by Vancouver-based filmmakers Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan follows up on the widely-acclaimed original 2003 film to expose how the world has been dangerously remade in the image of today’s even larger corporations, rebranded as ‘socially responsible’ – leaving democracy now on the verge of collapse. It is a cry for social justice and transformative solutions, woven in with stories of resistance and alternative modes from around the world. Many more documentaries will be announced at a later date.

International films occupy an important part of ALFF as a window into the wider world. Another Round from Danish auteur, Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt, The Celebration) is inspired by the idea that humans are born with a 0.05 deficit in blood alcohol content. The film follows Martin (played by the magnetic, Mads Mikkelsen) and three of his fellow high school teacher buddies – all middle-aged men – decide to test the theory. Another Round is nominated for four European Film Awards.

UK filmmaker, Posy Dixon’s biopic Keyboard Fantasies tells the incredible tale of time-traveling Black and transgender musical genius Beverly Glenn-Copeland, who, after three decades of obscurity living in Canada, has become a cult icon and finally finds his place in the world.

Truffle Hunters presents a charming look at a group of harvesters as rare as the white Alba truffle they are ever in pursuit of. Set deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy, this batch of truffle hunters seventy or eighty years young, and their dogs sneakily harvest the expensive culinary sensation, which to date has resisted all of modern science's efforts at cultivation.

A ‘stranger than fiction’ story from Norway The Painter and the Thief is one of the most talked-about documentaries of the year. An artist’s desperate attempt to recover the whereabouts of her stolen paintings leads to an unexpected, deep bond of friendship with the thief, in a compelling portrait of humanity, compassion and healing.

“With the pivot to presenting more films in the online edition of ALFF then we would normally present when ALFF was entirely in-cinema means there will be extra Available Light for more than just Yukon audiences this year. Much of the content online will be available to audiences across Canada this year. We’re excited that even the geo-restricted films will be available to cinema-lovers in the Northwest Territories to all Yukon communities,” says Festival Director, Andrew Connors. “We know that dedicated ALFF audiences still look forward to seeing films as a cinema experience so we’re very grateful for the collaboration of the Yukon Arts Centre who will help us present 15 socially-distanced screenings in a physical cinema over the span of the festival.”

After December 31st, the price for ALFF Online All-Access Pass will be $100. Single tickets for in-cinema events go on sale Thursday January 7, 2021. More details about special event artist talks, the ALFF industry series and other special events will be announced in January, 2021.

For further information, please contact Festival Director Andrew Connors – alff@yukonfilmsociety.com or by phone: 867-393-3456.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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