Sea to Sky Shorts Showcase at Whistler Film Festival connects people to community
Filmmakers had 20 days to shoot, edit, and submit a work for the new competition
“Utopia”, about Jaime Hill’s mountain-biking mentoring to girls, premieres at Whistler Film Festival’s Sea to Sky Shorts Showcase. met
Whistler Film Festival runs until December 20. Sea to Sky Shorts Showcase starts on December 10.
IT’S EASY TO see why Anna Dziczkaniece and Helen Burt were so inspired by Jaime Hill. Through her passion for hurling down forested slopes on a mountain bike, Hill is introducing her happy place to a new generation—specifically, girls.
Hill’s company, Hilltop MTB Utopia, offers mountain-biking programs, camps, coaching, and mentoring to young women. Moved by Hill’s determination to attract girls to the sport and keep them on their bikes, Dziczkaniece and Burt, of Whistler-based creative studio Lot 17, made “Utopia”, a poetic short film that will have its world premiere at the Whistler Film Festival as part of its new Sea to Sky Shorts Showcase.
The filmmakers found themselves struck by a statistic Hill shares on her website from the Women’s Sports Foundation.
“By the age of 14, girls are dropping out of sport at twice the rate of boys,” says Dziczkaniece, “Utopia”’s director and editor. “That is not okay. Through Hilltop MTB Utopia, Jaime has created a safe space for girls to learn, have fun, develop relationships, and explore their local landscape. We wanted to showcase what she has achieved and encourage more girls to get involved.
“We wanted to steer away from testosterone-fuelled stories,” she adds. “We had to tell Jaime’s story. Authenticity comes from female creatives speaking to female audiences.”
While Dziczkaniece and Burt practise adrenaline-fuelled activities like snowboarding and Muay Thai—sports that help them to develop self-awareness and confidence—they are not mountain bikers. This proved helpful in their creative process, says Burt, “Utopia”’s writer and producer.
“Our own lack of experience with mountain biking has given us an advantage in terms of creating content that connects with female viewers also new to the sport,” Burt says. “We have had to identify, address, and overcome our own fears related to mountain biking in order to thoroughly understand our target audience.”
Long-time fans of WFF, the creative duo decided it was time to take the plunge and enter their local community of filmmakers, ready to network, learn, and grow.
That’s exactly what the WFF’s Sea to Sky Shorts Showcase is all about. The inaugural regional filmmaking competition highlights filmmakers from the Sea to Sky region from Horseshoe Bay through Squamish and Whistler to the Pemberton Valley, including Birken and D’Arcy. Supported by the Hamber Foundation and sponsored by ecologyst and Nesters Market & Pharmacy Whistler, the contest comes with a $2,000 cash prize for the winning film (which will be announced at the fest’s awards ceremony on December 20).
The format could be anything from live action to documentary to animation to stop motion, and the subject matter was wide open, as long as filming took place within the Sea to Sky Corridor. The only catch was that filmmakers had just 20 days to shoot, edit, and submit their work.
Thirteen filmmaking teams were selected to participate in the kick-off competition.
“By connecting with local creators we’re looking forward to sharing stories that celebrate where the Whistler Film Festival began 20 years ago,” WFF managing director Angela Heck said in a statement. “This is truly an exciting group of filmmakers with stories that cover a range of topics and genres, from adventure films to introspective moments, and reflect the diversity and creativity that thrives in the Sea to Sky Corridor.”
Other mountain biking-focused shorts that will premiere at WFF are Paul Haysom’s “Finding a Home”; “Sam’s Suspension” by Hugh Saint-Jacques and Kieran Ross-Kelly; and “Making Miki’s Magic”, in which director Steve Andrew explores how the community of Squamish rallied to build a trail in honour of ski-cross Olympics hopeful Mikayla Martin, who died in a mountain-bike accident in 2019.
Keeping with the outdoors theme is “Nature Entwined”. Created by Squamish-based filmmakers Amanda Palmer and Lauren Bridle in collaboration with Yellow Heart Pictures’ Krista Rand Nature Entwined explores the inherent connection women have with nature.
Director-producer Amanda Palmer’s “Nature Entwined” looks at how local women connect with nature.
“‘Nature Entwined’ is a visual love letter to womanhood and how it is intimately connected with the Squamish landscape,” says director and producer Amanda Palmer. “We wanted to celebrate how local women spend time in nature and show how we’re connected not only to the land, but to each other. The response we received from women living in the Squamish area who wanted to help tell this story was incredible.”
Showcase finalists were selected based on their overall concept, creativity, and originality presented in a 15-second video pitch. The competition gives participants opportunities that are hard to find, allowing aspiring artists to experience first-hand the thrills and challenges that come with capturing and telling a story on film.
“We were trying to source funding for the film before having a solid concept and understanding of the mountain biking community,” “Utopia”’s Burt says. “The Sea to Sky Shorts Showcase was a perfect opportunity for us to make the content we want to get paid for making. We could also improve our timekeeping - this challenge taught us to always export the day before the deadline.
“It was also a really great opportunity to produce something through Lot 17 in the way we hope to create in the future: me working as copywriter/producer and Anna filling the role of director/editor,” she says. “We are so fortunate to have an amazingly talented group of friends that filled the rest of the team and brought our vision to life.”
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