TELUS STORYHIVE has provided funding for several Peace Region projects since 2016 – scroll down to watch two of my favorites – so I was pleased to learn that Gross Indecency: The Everett Klippert Story, a Telus Original, won the Best Alberta Short award and $2,500 at the 2018 Calgary International Film Festival which took place September 19-30.
But I was even more delighted to learn that the documentary features Kevin Allen who I met when he was Executive Director of AMAAS (Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society) before becoming a full-time Historian with the Calgary Gay History Project in 2014. As the last Canadian to be jailed for homosexuality, Everett Klippert’s story is important, Kevin says in the film. The court imposed a sentence of preventive detention which meant that Everett could be held in jail indefinitely, possibly for the rest of his life. This led directly to the decriminalization of homosexuality when Pierre Trudeau, acting as Justice Minister, introduced the Omnibus bill in the House of Commons on December 21, 1967, and declared, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” Watch the 2:21 clip at CBC Archives and watch the film below.
I also found it very interesting that the Calgary International Film Festival awarded Best Alberta Short to a film that was already online. STORYHIVE posted it on their YouTube channel on July 31 whereas it screened at the Calgary International Film Festival on September 22, 24, and 30. According to CIFF’s 2019 Submissions page, “For short films, priority is given to films that have not yet screened in Calgary and are not yet available online. We accept competition-based created shorts, where screening online is part of the process (for e.g. Telus Storyhive).” It’s nice to see that CIFF waives submission fees for Alberta filmmakers so it makes sense to submit STORYHIVE-funded films to CIFF even though they are at a disadvantage being online.
But our fest doesn’t accept submissions of films that are on YouTube – see our rules and regulations on our Submit page. We receive over 5,000 submissions as it is. Our programming team couldn’t handle the volume if we accepted submissions that are also on YouTube. However, we do try to find other opportunities to screen and/or share the work of our region’s STORYHIVE-funded filmmakers. We screened Demonetized on September 30 as part of the Alberta Culture Days package. Directed by Patrick O’Connor of Jimber Jam Studios and produced by Rew Jones of Checkered Owl Media, this 10-minute documentary received $10,000 in STORYHIVE funding. It’s about a disillusioned Internet creator who embarks on a journey to discover what it takes to make it on YouTube.
In 2017, Gordie Haakstad received $10,000 in STORYHIVE funding to make a music video. He and his The Distillery Film Company partner Chris Beauchamp made Fly Home by Mohsin Zaman which explores the various stories of passengers on a cross-Canada bus ride.
The deadline to apply for $10,000 in funding for the 2018 Music Edition at STORYHIVE is TODAY at 1:00pm MDT on Tuesday, October 2. The steps are:
- LOGIN to STORYHIVE.com and complete your Creator profile if you haven’t done so already
- CREATE a project by filling out the title and your phone number
- RECORD a 60-second pitch video describing your project
- UPLOAD the rest of your project’s requirements
- PREVIEW how your project page looks to voters
- If you’re happy with your project page, go to the DOCUMENTS TAB, review your materials summary and agree to the submission release terms.
Good luck to all the filmmakers in the Peace Region of northwest Alberta and northeast British Columbia who submit their projects!
