2018 Dawson City International Short Film Festival Program DCISFF_2018_PROGRAM_web | Page 32

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 3:30 PM
DOWN RIVER
Optimism
Deborah Stratman, USA, 15m, documentary
Draw down the sun. Dig up the gold.
The urge to relieve a winter valley of permanent
shadow and find fortune in alluvial gravel are
part of a long history of desire and extraction in
the far Canadian north. Cancan dancers, curlers,
ore smelters, former city officials and a curious
cliff-side mirrored disc congregate to form a town
portrait. Shot in location in Dawson City, Yukon
Territory.
Elegy
Jeffrey Langille, 23m, Yukon, experimental
Elegy was made during a process of frequent
observation of the Yukon River near Dawson City
throughout the winter of 2016-17. As temperatures
dropped below minus 25° C, plumes of ice fog
rose from an open channel of water and shrouded
the river. The pace of the video echoes the pace
of these slow atmospheric events. In a series of
long camera shots, Elegy examines how moving
images of near-stillness present an unfolding of
time, time that is perceived in reference to natural
processes rather than a human measure.
End of the Ice Age
Peter Clarkson, NWT, 25m, documentary
Canada’s longest ice road has been a way of life
for the communities of Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik for
more than 50 years, and a beacon to international
adventurers. As a new permanent road is built to
replace it, this film explores the importance of this
vital connector to the people it binds together.
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