By Justine Kelsie

Local film festival not short on enthusiasm

May 4, 2018 | 11:29 AM

The Reel Shorts Film Festival continues to thrive in Grande Prairie as the 11th annual event goes next week.  

For an event to get this far, it takes a large number of people to volunteer their time and energy. Festival Director Terry Scerbak says there are 114 volunteers including 40 on the programming team. For the upcoming 2018 event, there were 5,300 films submitted from 129 countries. Due to the variety of entries, the theme this year is “Around the World in 80 Films”.

“The films are between two minutes and 40 minutes. That is what we are selecting from for the screenings. We often are able to get the North American or Canadian premiere of phenomenal films that have been screening in Australia or Europe. We can get first dibs and sometimes, we beat Sundance (Film Festival) or TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival),” said Scerbak.

The week is laid out in themed packages of films being shown at the Grande Prairie Live Theatre (GPLT). They range from “Friends & Lovers” to “Crime & Punishment” with the full list of screenings on their Facebook page and website.

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Scerbak says there are two Peace Region productions to watch out for including Frightening48 award winner Helter Shelter as well as Defining Moments, a documentary. An Edmonton Filmmaker has also submitted an approximately 5-minute short documentary on a Grande Prairie area shop.

“A great documentary can give a background aspect to it. I think many people are familiar with the doughnuts in Crooked Creek but getting a well-made short documentary about it is quite entertaining.”

The Frantic48 screening is another way to see Peace Country made films. During a 48-hour period, contestants will piece together films with props and dialogue to compete against each other. The productions are then shown during an afternoon at the festival. There are about 14 being screened this year.

There is also another opportunity for local filmmakers with two workshops being provided alongside the festival.

School packages continue to be popular with about 2,400 students attending last year and the same amount pre-booking tickets for next week. Themes for the school screenings range from “Critter Tales” to “At Risk” with showings available for students in grade one to grade 12.

Although the festival continues to be a success, Scerbak says there is always room to grow.

“What is holding us back from growing isn’t necessarily audience demand or our capacity, it is the venue. We don’t have a venue that has two screens. We would like to expand and do feature films as well, but right now, we can’t because there are technical requirements that we don’t have the capability to do at the GPLT,” explains Scerbak.

For a longer film, a Digital Cinema Projector and sound quality is important to have, according to the Director. There is a proposed Performing and Media Arts Centre for downtown Grande Prairie in the works, but Scerbak says that the proposed plan for the space wouldn’t be ideal. She would rather have a space where there are multiple screens within one building to better accommodate people who would like to attend presentations back-to-back.

“Ultimately, that would be the best for us. To have two or three screens available in a space that could also do performing arts. It would specifically have sound and picture requirements for digital film.”

For now, Scerbak says they will focus on executing another successful event May 8 to 14 at the GPLT. Although the official first event is held Tuesday, the first of the student screenings take place on Monday, May 7.