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70 Years of Yukon Cinema Celebration!

Friday, November 8 until Wednesday, November 27, 2024Yukon Theatre

To celebrate the iconic Yukon Theatre’s upcoming 70th birthday as well as the Yukon Film Society’s 40th, YFS is presenting a celebration of films and events in November! Guest filmmakers! Live events! Yukon films and music!

This celebration will take place over two weeks in November and will include experiences such as: 2 to 4 films from the past seven decades of the Yukon Cinema's time as a landmark community building; 24 Yukon-made shorts to play before the features; panel discussions and workshops moderated both by local and visiting filmmaking talent; and two silent-era films accompanied by live scores by northern musicians.

On Friday, December 3, 1954, the Yukon Theatre opened its doors to the public with a sold out screening of The Glenn Miller Story, directed by Anthony Mann. It was Whitehorse's first purpose-built space for the community to gather for arts & entertainment. The Yukon Film Society was founded thirty years later, in 1984, by community-minded folks who wanted to bring independent, arthouse and documentary films to Whitehorse to feed Yukoners' craving for engagement with the world outside the Territory and to experience films pushing the artform in new ways. To celebrate these meaningful anniversaries, YFS is organizing this festival to honour the longevity of filmgoing and filmmaking in the territory. Programming will represent the ways in which cinema has changed and progressed—by highlighting works created by underserved filmmakers—while also paying tribute to the rich and expansive history of film and the artists who have altered, added, or experimented with the form, forever changing the medium. As such, we will screen at least two films from each decade, beginning in the 1950s and ending in the 2020s.

Plus the 2024 Yukon 48: Film Challenge screening will coincide with the festival and kick off the event on the opening night.

Feature Films include:

Man with A Movie Camera (with live score by Hendrika), dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929

The Glenn Miller Story, dir. Anthony Mann, 1954

The Far Country, dir. Anthony Mann, 1954

Forbidden Planet, dir. Fred M Wilcox, 1956

The Seventh Seal, dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1957

Vertigo, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1958

8 ½, dir. Federico Fellini, 1963

A Hard Day’s Night, dir. Richard Lester, 1964 

Buster Keaton Rides Again, dir. John Spotton, 1965

2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, dir. Mel Stuart, 1971

Days Of Heaven, dir. Terrence Malik, 1978

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1979

The Evil Dead, dir. Sam Raimi, 1981

Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott, 1982

Purple Rain, dir. Albert Magnoli, 1984

Next of Kin, dir. Atom Egoyan, 1985

Pretty In Pink, dir. Howard Deutch, 1986

Dirty Dancing, dir. Emile Ardolino, 1987

Spaceballs, dir. Mel Brooks, 1987

Do the Right Thing, dir. Spike Lee, 1989

Paris is Burning, dir. Jennie Livingston, 1990

Goodfellas, dir. Martin Scorcese, 1990

Ed Wood, dir. Tim Burton, 1994

Titanic, dir. James Cameron, 1997

Boogie Nights, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997

The Big Lebowski, dir. Coen Brothers, 1998

Picturing a People, dir. Carol Geddes, 1997 (Yukon)

The Iron Giant, dir. Brad Bird, 1999

Best In Show, dir. Christopher Guest, 2000

Shrek, dir. Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson, 2002

The Call of Cthulhu (Livescore by Garbageman), dir. Andrew Leman, 2005

Water, dir. Deepa Mehta, 2005

A Drummers Dream, dir. John Walker, 2010

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, dir. Edgar Wright, 2010

Incendies, dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2010

Hunt for the Wilderpeople, dir. Taika Waititi, 2016

Sovereign Soil, dir. David Curtis, 2019 (Yukon)

Rumours, dir. Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, Evan Johnson, 2024

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