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Phoenix is out on location this morning
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with Denise Young right now,
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who is the Picture This Film Festival Director.
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Hi Phoenix.
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Hey Kate, hi everybody.
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Filming film is the topic of discussion today
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so we brought Denise in because
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there is another event, the PTFF
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explain that.
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PTFF is short for Picture This Film Festival
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which is...we're kicking off our our
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fourthteenth year of celebrating films
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either made by people with disabilities
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on any topic or about disability
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and those may or may not be
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filmmakers with disabilities.
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Why is this film festival so important
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to Calgarians and also to these film makers?
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I think it's really important for...to get that voice out
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because it isn't a voice that you get to see
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on the mainstream media as much.
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It gives an opportunity for people to tell their stories
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and we even say we have an educational function
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to educate the broader community about people
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with disabilities and the reality of their lives
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not…not the fictions
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that are, kind of, in mainstream media.
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Yeah. There's a couple of examples we're going to
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show here in just a quick second.
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These are amazing and it comes from all
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different parts of the country as well too
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not necessarily just Canada
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but how many countries are being represented?
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This year we had a 125 entries
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from 26 different countries
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and of the award winners there were
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10 different countries represented.
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It's a little daunting putting on something like this
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even though you've been doing it for 14 years,
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How are you managing?
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Well, um, okay. Our real festival director
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is on a long term disability leave so we have
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a bunch of people standing in to replace the one.
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I think you're going to talk to one of my colleagues
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who is working with me, from London,
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in a few minutes
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Beautiful
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…the co-curator for the festival, so…
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and there's lots of people, just lots of people
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working and lots of volunteers.
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We usually have between fifteen hundred
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and a thou…or two thousand hours
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of volunteer time put in by, you know,
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ninety to a hundred volunteers.
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Come on! That's amazing!
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Yeah, there's a lot of commitment to the festival.
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You know, we're asking our poll question about
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whether or not the film industry
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IS important to Alberta, IS important to Calgary.
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How would you respond to that?
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I think it's very important. We were talking a bit
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earlier about that new facility they want to build.
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Being able to actually create works locally…
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for the international audience but also for the local
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audience for some of the independent film makers,
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the smaller budget people,
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absolutely important and probably a big employer
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in the Province, I would imagine, as well.
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The uniqueness of the Picture This Film Festival
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is that you certain criteria for these films as well.
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Yeah, the criteria really just are about who's
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making the films or the topic, right? So, it's either
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a film maker with a disability and as I said, those
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can be on anything. We have three entries
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this year from a filmmaker from Kathmandu
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who has disabilities.
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Wow
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And one of his entries is on child labour.
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So, it's got nothing to do with disability per se,
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so…or as I said,
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if it's on the topic of disability
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anybody can enter a film.
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If you're looking for something unique,
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something kind of different, well, it's
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the Picture This Film Festival the…
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your website so that you can see these films?
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Yes, it's PTFF.org
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which is short for Picture This Film Festival.
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Wonderful stuff.
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So, all the information is on there.
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Denise Young, she is the festival director,
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the acting festival director.
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Thank you for coming in
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and let's see more of these films.
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Great Stuff.