It took six decades, but a Saskatchewan production has finally won the top prize at the Yorkton Film Festival.
Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland was the big winner on the weekend at the festival in the east-central Saskatchewan city, picking up the Golden Sheaf award for Best of the Festival, as well as four other awards.
The documentary by Regina-based 4 Square Entertainment explores the aftermath of nuclear testing on people who live in eastern Kazakhstan.
It’s the first time in the festival’s 60-plus-year history that the top prize has been taken by a Saskatchewan-produced film.
Producer Gerry Sperling credited his stepdaughter Carrie-May Siggins for helping the film win the award for best research.
“Part of the preparation for this show was, she spent a month, a winter month, in northeast Kazakhstan in a house with no running water and not very much heat,” Sperling said.
“But she was really dedicated to the task. Her mother, [author] Maggie Siggins, is very proud of her and so am I. She’s a great researcher.”
Snagged other prizes
The film also took the award for best Saskatchewan production, best social/political documentary and best director (non-fiction), Rob King.
Other multiple winners included Wapas Bay Productions and the National Film Board. The CBC took home three awards, including one for a TV documentary on hockey player Theo Fleury, shown on The Fifth Estate.
Nova Scotia filmmaker Ariella Pahlke came away with the Point of View award for her documentary, Burning Rubber, which is about drivers with a yen for squealing tires.
Over the seven years it took Pahlke to complete the documentary, she said she discovered that for many people, peeling out and creating skid marks is a form of self-expression.
“It’s a thing that is really looked down on, you know, burning rubber, squealing your tires. Everyone complains about it. It’s seen as redneck, rural, drunk youth, whatever,” she said.
“The people that are in this documentary … think it’s actually really interesting.”
The Yorkton Film Festival, which ran May 27-29, honours Canadian productions that are 60 minutes or less in length.
The gala awards ceremony on Saturday capped off a weekend of workshops, film screenings, a lobster fest and skeet shooting.
