By Senator Janis G. Johnson
Chair, Gimli Film Festival
With each new year I am thrilled to see the new films, artists, and enthusiastic faces in our ever-growing audience at the Gimli Film Festival. I am very proud of what the GFF has accomplished over the years and particularly so on this 10th Anniversary.
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was called by my friend, Jon Einarsson Gustafsson, from the Icelandic Counsulate’s office in Winnipeg. Jon is a filmmaker who was working for then Icelandic Consul Eidur Gudnasson, helping to coordinate a film program with Iceland for the Icelandic Festival of Manitoba. It was to take place on the annual Islendingadagurinn weekend in Gimli, and needed financial support from both Canada and Iceland,who had already committed.
I undertook to contact Telefilm Canada to see if there were grants available for such an event, for I saw the potential and was spurred on by my desire to help create a film festival in Gimli. I was fortunate with Telefilm and they funded us then and still do, increasing our grant every few years. It is fair to say that Telefilm considers the GFF to be one of it’s success stories.
It was then that the Gimli Film Festival came into being and held it’s first festival August 3-6, 2001. That first summer the films were directed by Canadian Directors of Icelandic background and Icelandic Directors, including Fridrik Thor Fridrikson, Baltasar Kormakur, Sturla Gunnarson, Guy Maddin, Caelum Vatnsdal and Jon Einarsson Gustafsson.
A large canvas screen was located, placed on scaffolding and set offshore in Lake Winnipeg on Gimli beach. We have been lucky for 10 years that the screen has never shifted after being installed on the perfect sandbar by the incredible Don Steinmetz and his crew. We had a new screen made several years ago which is still good to this day.
It is a badge of courage that in our first year we showed “Tales from the Gimli Hospital” on the beach! Every year since we have shown a Guy Maddin film and Norma Bailey’s Cannes Award winning short, “The Performer”, which opens the evening film with “O Canada”.
It was very exciting that first year to see the films rise above the water on the huge screen and take us away to the magic of film under stars and northern lights.
Interestingly, films shown outdoors in Gimli were not entirely new to many of us who spent our summers at the Lake. Guy Maddin and his pals often filmed scenes from Loni Beach life and entertained us with screenings of the footage on a sheet in his or a neighbour’s backyard. We were most impressed. Over the years the idea of outdoor film screenings surfaced from time to time, but not until Islendingadagurinn 2001 did forces come together and a film festival take place.
It was helped along by the impressive leadership of the Icelandic Festival President, Harley Jonasson, for he and his Board wanted a film program on the Icelandic weekend and were a tremendous support. We stayed on Icelandic weekend for six years but as the summers went by and the festival grew, it was obvious the GFF had to move on, enlarge the staff, hire a part time director, set up a Board to raise more funds, do public relations and assist with all aspects of a growing organization. The “little festival on the prairie” was becoming very popular and attracting 1500 people to see films after only few years. People loved it and it was our dream to see it grow…not unlike Sundance, Cannes or Toronto!
But it was crunch time on many fronts now. Jon was moving back to Iceland to pursue his filmmaking career and his talent and energy were not easy to replace.
Fortunately, Jim Ingebrigtsen offered to be our part time director for a year and with his help and a small board our festival and audience grew. We followed this with the hiring of our first full-time Executive Director, Kristine Sigurdson, and began focusing on making the GFF a true Canadian film festival with a Circumpolar nations dimension and an Icelandic component.
By 2007, the festival had grown too large for the Icelandic weekend and we parted company, fully supportive of each other. We moved to a different weekend and any concerns I might have had about the change of date were eased when a huge and enthusiastic crowd turned out for the film festival. We learned an interesting thing that summer… people love music documentaries and showing “Neil Young; Heart of Gold” and Leonard Cohen on the beach screen under a full moon and stars had people asking for reruns! By this time our audience had increased to 3000 and in 2009 4000 people came to the Gimli Film Festival. They had a fantastic choice of 80 films, documentaries, and shorts showing in three theatres as well as on the beach. We were delighted when Gimli Theatre owner Larry Minarik became our partner in the GFF and we love using his wonderful theatre to show feature films.
Of course the Waterfront Centre Theatre and the Aspire Theatre have been invaluable to the showing of GFF films from the beginning.
In 2007-2008, it became time, again, for the inevitable hunt for Board members! We were lucky to find the people we did and I feel priviledged to Chair the Board. I have rarely seen such dynamic and caring individuals who are giving enormous time and energy to the GFF. We have quadrupaled our budget, our program, our audience and our social events. This year we are launching a new Film of the Year Award, a new Gimli Film Festival Legacy Award, and the largest lineup of Manitoba films ever programmed.
Join us and celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the outstanding Gimli Film Festival. And please come again every summer.
In closing, thank you to everyone who has been part of making the GFF what it is today.
Senator Janis G. Johnson – Chair, Gimli Film Festival
