Arctic Film
Festival
      

November 15-18, 2007
The 2007 Event was an inspiring weekend
filled with inspiring coursework, workshops, films and conversation.
Info on this page describes the 2007 event.
Planning for 2008 is now underway - stay tuned!
 

Celebrating  the  Traditions, Customs and Lifeways
in the global arctic region represented
in the media arts

The Arctic Film Festival is an integral part of the Winterer's Gathering
at North House Folk School. This multi-day educational event is a celebration of the crafts, customs, landscape, history and stories of winter travel and traditional lifeways in the north. Winter travel enthusiasts and northern culture admirers merge on the North House campus for four days of winter travel seminars, courses and workshops complemented by multiple days of inspiring thought-provoking international films about life in the arctic.

Additional information, film descriptions and the schedule are outlined below
Inquires welcome: 218-387-9762 or info@northhouse.org

Download - Event 2007 Schedule
Link to main Winterer's Gathering page
Future WGAFF dates: Nov 20-23, 2008

2007 Screening Schedule - Arctic Film Festival
   ** the following schedule outlines thee 2007 festival

OVERVIEW
Friday, November 16, 2007
   * 9:00pm - Late Night Screening
     Title: Smilla's Sense of Snow

Saturday, November 17, 2007
   * 11:00am - Documentary Screening
     Title: Say Le Ger
   * 7:30pm - Featured Film
     Title: The Journals of Knud Rasmussen

Sunday, November 18, 2007
   * 7:30pm - Expedition Screening
     Title: Returning Home

DESCRIPTIONS
Arctic Film Fest - Featured Screening
Saturday, 7:30pm
- The Journals of Knud Rasmussen
   (Zacharias Kunuk, Norman Cohn;Nunanvat, 112 minutes)
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen is the latest feature film from Kunuk Cohn Productions, Igloolik Isuma Productions (The Fast Runner) and Barok Film (Copenhagen). Released a year ago, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has gone on to captivate audiences around the globe. In the film, the last great shaman of the Inuit Avva and his beautiful and headstrong daughter Apak lives on the verge of change in 1922. As the father is trying to resist the changes encroaching upon his family and culture, a group of Danish scientists arrive to study and record his way of life.

 Arctic Film Fest - Late-Nite Screening
Friday, 9pm
- Smilla’s Sense of Snow
   (Bille August; Country, 121 minutes)
Set in snowy, cold Copenhagen, Denmark, Smilla Jaspersen is a 37 years old woman of indigenous Greenlandic origin, who is living in Copenhagen. One day her friend - 6 years old Esajas, an Inuit boy - falls down from the roof and is killed in what seems an accident. But Smilla believes he has been killed. Highly ranked people try to ‘convince’ her not to interfere, but she does not listen to them and tries to solve the crime. Her sense of snow leads her into a mystery with roots far back in time. A contemporary thriller that explores connections to the indigenous past and the austure frozen Greenlandic andscape.

Arctic Film Fest - Documentary Screening
Saturday, 11am
- Say La Ger
   (C. James Dahn; United States, 26 minutes)
This film documents the journey into Mongolia to find the culture and uses surrounding the ger, or yurt. The journey started in Ucanbatar, Mongolia and ended 300 miles northwest to the mountains and Little Gobi Desert.  The film not only documents the construction and uses of the ger, but how the spirituality also plays a significant role in the lives of the herds people andt heir herds. The film captures the undisturbed land, water and air that is a pronounced part of the Mongolian landscape.

Arctic Film Fest - Expedition Screening
Sunday, Noon
- Returning Home
   (Ono Fleischer; Greenland, 53 minutes)
“Far beyond where the great mountains rise, where only the forming spirits dwell, they and they alone can foretell one’s future. Yet and nevertheless, we travel onward; feeling always truly, truly blessed.” Inspired by the travels of Greenlandic explorer Knud Rasmussen (1879-1933), contemporary Greenlandic explorers Ono Fleischer and Jens Danielsen follow in the footsteps of Rasmussen across the land of the Inuit from Qaanaaq, Greenland to Utqiarvik, Alaska by dog team in a gesture of Inuit solidarity. Unlike most Arctic explorers, whose work was aimed at serving the economic and political interests in colonizing Europeans, Rasmussen used his journeys to gain knowledge about Inuit culture and language. The collections of stories and legends that Rasmussen gathered on his journeys are now classics of written Inuit culture. In light of this, Fleisher and Daneilsen carry out this expedition.

 

Nominated Films
The following films were nominated/considered in past years.

Documentary
Picture of Light (Canada/83min.)
Picturing a People (Canada/48min)
Fitness and the Father (Canada/?)
Birth on Human Terms (Greenland/45min.)
Destructive Wind (USA/62min.)
Jordin Tootoo (Canada/23min.)
Celebrating the North (Canada/23min.)
Shipyards Lament: The Yukon’s Lost Frontier (Canada/40min.)
Kola ultradeep borehole (Russia/30min.)
Unikaatuatiit: Story Tellers (Canada/52min.)
Amphibious Man (Greenland/28min.)

Mixed Category
Eskimo (Russia; Doc. or Ethno/Hist./60min.)
Rafehis aiggit/Times of Hardship (Norway; Doc. or Ethno/Hist./53min.)
Songs in Stone (Canada; Doc. or Ethno./Hist./46min.)
Nuliajuk: Mother of the Sea Beasts (Canada; Doc./Ethno./Hist./50min.)
Nanaici—The Indigenous People’s Film (unknown; Doc. or Ethno./Hist./?)
Autumn on Ob River (Norway; Doc. or Ethno./Hist./?)
Breaking the Waves (Scotland; Classic or Ethno./Hist./152min.)
Lapland Reservation (Russia; Expedition or Ethno/Hist/26min.)

Expedition
Winter Walk (USA/62min.)
The Harriman Alaska Expedition (USA/110min.)

Ethno/Historical
Heart of Light (Greenland/92min.)
The Pathfinder (Norway/88min.)
The Fast Runner (Canada/172min.)
Where the River Begins (USA/16min.)
Uksuum Cauyai: The Drums of Winter (USA/90min.)
Nanook Revisited (unknown/60min.)

 The Arctic Film Festival is part of the
Winterer's Gathering Weekend that also includes:

Featured Speakers
The Great Gear & Ski Swap
The Deep Freeze Chili Feed
Harbor-side Winter Tent Camp
Free Winter-Skills Demos
Learn more - visit the Winterer's Gathering web page

North House Folk School is an independent educational nonprofit committed to enriching lives and building community through the teaching of traditional northern crafts.    ** Learn more about North House's mission    ** Learn more about supporting North House