A few sparkly and exciting ice events have happened between now and the last time this blog had a regular heartbeat. Here’s one I wanted to share.
In the last post I had written in 2010, into blue noon: over a frozen road, I had just finished editing a short video, using footage from a drive up the ice road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. That drive stays with me in magical ways (did we really see all that … spaciousness? mysteriousness?) and in some exciting ways, so does the film itself.
In 2011, Dan Sokolowski, director of the Dawson City International Short Film Festival, encouraged me to re-edit the footage for screening at that year’s festival. The problem with some of the original sunless footage was that it became too pixelated on the large screen. So I went back to the tape from the trip I did to Inuvik in autumn, and combined the two.
The result is a trance in two seasons.
Ice Road to Tuk did indeed show at the DCISFF in 2011. And another result: it was included in a screening program in March 2012, at the Vancouver Women in Film Festival, where it won the NFB Short Documentary Film Award!! It was part of Wise + Wild: A showcase of Short Films from the Yukon, curated by Lulu Keating of Red Snapper Films (and of Dawson City, thank you very much. she’s quite the mentor and inspiration here. I’ll have to find an ice connection to tell some stories about her).
What an honour to be included in the first place, and then recognized like this. I used the prize money towards buying the c.1914 upright piano that now graces my living room … and hopefully will appear in a new short film soon.
meg walker 