The Chilliwack Independent Film Festival gave its Best Feature Film award Sunday to the locally shot Mongrels, director Jerome Yoo’s film about a family of Korean immigrants enlisted to cull a population of feral dogs in rural Canada.
The film was shot partly in the region around Chilliwack, a town of about 100,000, roughly 60 miles inland from Vancouver. Chilliwack, surrounded by snowcapped mountains and hiking trails, sustains a thriving film scene — as Sunday’s awards demonstrated. The three-day festival, which started with a screening of Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs (shot in Vancouver and edited in part by Chilliwack’s Graham Fortin,) included more than 100 feature and short films.
Sunday’s awards, hosted by Luchagore Productions co-founder Gigi Saul Guerrero, honored filmmakers from Chilliwack and around the world. The Best of Fest award went to Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language, Canada’s selection in the race for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards to be held next year. It is an often absurdist vision of a France divided between French and Farsi.
Mongrels producer Nach Dudsdeemaytha, who is based in Vancouver, was thrilled to screen a locally-made film for the Chilliwack community. It premiered earlier this year at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
“Mongrels was such a labor of love that was homegrown here in the Greater Vancouver area and brought a bunch of independent creators together,” he told MovieMaker after accepting Best Feature Film on behalf of the film.
“A lot of us on the team are writers and directors as well. We had such a tiny budget. We had so many challenges. But it was just an amazing experience to work with the community to bring this vision to life.”
The film reflects a moviemaking tradition of banding together with a group of likeminded collaborators and helping one another complete each other’s films, outside the Hollywood studio system. It continues with Rat King, which won Best Fraser Valley Film. The film was made by students at GW Graham Secondary, under the guidance of teacher Michael Florizone, and reflects what students in even a smallish community can accomplish when enough people take filmmaking seriously.
The awards were held at the charming Grand Hall in Downtown Chilliwack’s cozy, Christmasy District 1881. Screenings were held at the comfortable, homey four-screen Cottonwoods Cinemas, and panels and talks — including one where Perkins revealed a devlish secret about Longlegs — took place at the state-of-the-art entrepreneurial space Cowork Chilliwack.
Cowork Chilliwack owner Tim McAlpine, whose daughter worked on Rat King, joked at the awards ceremony that he was handling out the award for Best Festival Director.
“There’s one nominee and that’s Taras Groves,” said McAlpine, who noted that Groves, a British-born director who relocated to Chilliwack years ago, approached local business leaders with an idea for the Chilliwack Independent Film Festival a decade ago. It is now thriving, and Sunday’s awards capped its eighth year.
Here is the complete list of winners at the 8th Annual Chilliwack Independent Film Festival. (MovieMaker lists short films in quotation marks and features in italics.)
Chilliwack Independent Film Festival Winners
Best Script
“Sorry for your Cost,” written and directed by Rosie Choo Pidcock
Best Score
“Discoteque,” by Masashi Yamamoto
Best Cinematography
“The Hatch”,” by Mikah Sharkey
Best Editing
“DTF?,” by Haley Sawatzky
Best Animation Short
“Tennis, Oranges,” by Sean Pecknold
Best Documentary
“Altona,” by Heath Affolter, Jon Affolter and Nathan Affolter
Best Student Film
“Team Building Exercise”
Best Fraser Valley Film
“Rat King,” written and directed by Ayush Senanayake.
Best Actor
Sam Krochmal, “DTF?”
Best Actress
Nhi Do, “The Sorrow”
Best Director
Jess McLeod, “DTF?”
Best Genre Short Film
“Neighbourhood at the End of the World,” by Shane Day
Best Live Action Short Film
“One Day This Kid,” by Alexander Farah
Best of BC
“Auganic,” by Krit Komkrichwarakool
Best Feature Film
“Mongrels,” by Jerome Yoo
Best of Fest
“Universal Language,” by Matthew Rankin
Pitch Sessions (winner gets to be Telefilm Canada nominee to win a $250,000 budget for their film)
“Wah Lau,” by Tanya Jade
Chilliwack Spirit Award
“The Worst Day Ever,” by Keegan Connor Tracy
You can learn more about the Chilliwack Independent Film Festival here.
Main image: Mongrels. Game Theory Films.