Gordie Haakstad directed his first feature-length film, Abel’s Field starring Kevin Sorbo and Samuel Davis, in Texas in 2012. It was released on DVD by Sony Pictures in January 2013.

Born in Grande Prairie and raised in the United States, Gordie graduated with honours from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television. He then helped to create industrial, short and feature-length projects and interned under cinematographer Don Burgess.

Gordie taught cinematography and editing at the New York Film Academy, developing much of the curriculum for those two departments. He moved to Grande Prairie from Los Angeles in January 2013 to visit family and decided to stay while maintaining filmmaking ties in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.

Gordie judged the Screenwriting Competition and taught the Editing for Filmmakers workshop during the 2013 fest. He taught DD1082 – Introduction to Video Production in the fall term at GPRC (Grande Prairie Regional College) from 2013 to 2015.

As well as being on the 2014 festival’s jury, Gordie judged the Youth Screenplay Competition and mentored the three winners of the 2013 and 2014 Reel Shorts screenplay competitions: Chris Beauchamp (The Device), Devon Burbank (Julian), and Susie Winters (CURRY FAVOUR). He wrote and directed Cold Decision which screened in the 2015 fest.

Gordie and Chris Beauchamp are Writer/Directors of The Souvenir which screens in the Psycho Shorts package. All four Peace Region films can be seen in the Peace Region & Guest Encore package at 6:30 pm on Sat, May 14 when the award for Best Peace Region Short will be presented by Decca Industries.