Robert Rooney announced this morning that the Wakefield International Film Festival (WIFF) will host the directors of two of the eight films being screened during the 2015 fest, February 7th - March 1st, 2015.
Rooney, Artistic Director of the popular documentary film festival, has programmed one of these filmmakers for the opening weekend and one for the closing weekend - nice bracketing for a festival that is continuing to grow steadily into this, its 6th season. The Festival has a philosophical dedication to promoting discussion and involvement in its films' issues. The Q & A discourse with these award-winning filmmakers continues this tradition.
Over the first weekend of WIFF 2015, February 7 & 8, filmmaker Marie-Hélène Cousineau will be present to speak with filmgoers about her film Sol (2014), co-directed with Susan Avingaq. The film investigates the suspicious death in custody of 26-year-old Inuk actor and musician Solomon Tapatiaq Uyarasak, and the alarming youth suicide rate in the Arctic region. Sol was awarded Best Canadian Feature at the 2014 Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal (RIDM). Marie-Hélène Cousineau first arrived in Igloolik, Nunavut in 1990, where she quickly became an integral part in the development of women's video. In 1991, she founded Tarriaksuk Video Centre with Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn, and established Arnait Video Productions with Mary Kunuk and Madeline Ivalu. She still produces and directs videos for Arnait Video Productions, including this film. She will be present after both the Saturday February 7th screening at 7:30pm and the Sunday February 8th show at 4pm, to discuss Sol with the WIFF audience.
The last weekend of WIFF, February 28 and March 1, sees Yukon director Suzanne Crocker speaking with festival filmgoers. Her film, All the Time in the World (2014), charts her family's search for a new perspective. Over nine months, Crocker filmed her family - husband, three children and three pets - living off the grid, with no electricity and no access to society, in an experiment aimed at disconnecting from hectic, technology-laden lives in order to reconnect with each other and our natural environment. Suzanne Crocker switched careers from rural family physician to filmmaker in 2009. This very personal—and yet somehow universal—film is her directing debut. It received the Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival last fall. Crocker will speak with the audience on February 28 after the 7:30pm show and on March 1 after the 4pm show. The 6th Annual Wakefield International Film Festival runs from February 7 - March 1, 2015 at the Wakefield Centre, 38 Valley Drive, in Wakefield, QC. Films screen each Saturday and Sunday night at 4pm and 7:30pm. Tickets for all WIFF 2015 screenings are now available at the website: www.wakefieldfilmfest.ca - watch for the full season press release later this week.
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