Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival.

A STORY OF FAMILY AGAINST THE backdrop of a career as a Harlem Globetrotter was the big winner at this year's Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival. Hardwood, the first film from Hubert Davis, walked away with four awards, including the coveted Golden Sheaf of Excellence as the festival's top film. The film also earned Davis a Golden Sheaf for best direction in a non-dramatic film, as well as for editing and documentary short subject.

"It was a rewarding thing for all the hard work. It all paid off," said Davis moments after accepting the festival's main award. "Awards aren't why one chooses to tell a particular story, but they are certainly a welcome result just the same." In the case of Hardwood, the story is a deeply personal one for Davis, starting out as a documentary about his father, Mel Davis, a former Harlem Globetrotter. "My dad's pretty involved with youth in Vancouver. He's not just teaching basketball, but teaching life lessons too," he says. "I always thought he was an interesting character and a local hero." At the same time, though, Davis said his father had flaws too, including "mistakes made in life with his own family." The fact his father was a Globetrotter sparked interest in the film. "That was the hook," says Davis. However, as documentaries often do, Hardwood evolved, becoming a film much more about family relationships. Davis realized as the process began that he had to tell all his father's relationship stories: his own, his mother's and that of his first wife and son as well. "It's a story of what families go through, for better or worse."

The Best of Saskatchewan Golden Sheaf went to a film shot on location in Regina entitled Karaoke Night at the Plains. It took the honours over other Saskatchewan productions as Youkali Hotel, which won three festival awards and the highly popular CTV comedy Comer Gas, which was nominated for five awards, but took home only the Best Comedy Golden Sheaf. Karaoke Night at the Plains producer Lori Kuffner says the award "was great to win" against such strong competition, adding the depth of quality among the nominees suggests the province's film industry is strong. "We've got a wonderful crew here. We've got SaskFilm which supports this industry. We've got SCN, which is a big help." Kuffner's film also took the Golden Sheaf for Best Location Sound.

Comer Gas is the hottest Canadian comedy show to come along in years. Created by a Saskatchewan native Brent Butt, and filmed in Rouleau, Saskatchewan, the show has a definite small-town Saskatchewan feel. It's garnering a close look by the film industry too, with five Golden Sheaf nominations at this year's festival. The show won for Best Comedy, while also nominated for Best of Saskatchewan, Best Script, Best Actor for Eric Peterson (who plays Brent's father Oscar) and Best Actress for Janet Wright who plays Brent's mother, Emma. Both Peterson and Wright are Saskatchewan natives.

The Aboriginal Golden Sheaf Award category was new this year, helping spotlight a segment of the film industry that has long been overlooked. At least that's the feeling among several of those up for the award at this year's festival. Jeff Barnaby, director of From Cherry English, one of four films nominated in the Aboriginal category, says Native people have been icons in films from the earliest times, but usually the depictions "are negative stereotypes of Aboriginals." Today that is changing because more Aboriginals are becoming involved in the industry, giving a fresh new voice on film, says Barnaby. "I don't want to make a good Aboriginal film, or a good Spanish film, or a good French film. I just want to make a good film. That's what I was trying to do."

Calvin Daniels is the assistant editor and senior reporter with Yorkton This Week.