The Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival kicks off its 61st consecutive year on Thursday, bringing people together with Prairie talent including Corner Gas cops Lorne Cardinal and Tara Spencer-Nairn, and CBC Winnipeg exec Carl Karp.

‘We’re really excited about this year,’ says executive director Randy Goulden, nodding to Cardinal and Spencer-Nairn, who will emcee the festival’s Golden Sheaf Awards on Saturday. ‘And Stephen Hall [best known for HGTV’s Designer Guys] will be leading the directors workshop all day Saturday. It’s a terrific lineup,’ she adds.

The longest-running festival and awards ceremony of its kind in North America, Yorkton offers four days of workshops, events and screenings, culminating in the Golden Sheafs on Saturday and screenings of the winning entries on Sunday.

Around 150 delegates are expected to attend the festival in southern Saskatchewan. ‘We’re also equally oriented toward professional development,’ notes Goulden, with workshops devoted to the legal/insurance side of the biz, publicity and distribution advice.

The Pitch and Munch portion of the festival — a perennial favorite — offers delegates the chance to meet face-to-face with industry movers and shakers and present their new projects.

Ten industry reps are on board, including: Joan Jenkinson, director of independent production, VisionTV, Toronto; Karp, executive producer, new programming initiatives English television, CBC, Winnipeg; and Sarah Jane Flynn, director, factual content, Canwest, Toronto. They will be on hand for one-on-one consultations with emerging filmmakers as well as the familiar 10-minute-limit pitch portion.

Following the Actors Studio format, the In Conversation With… session features Arlene Duncan, who stars as Fatima on Little Mosque on the Prairie, and will be moderated by Cavan Cunningham, who plays the mayor of Dog River on Corner Gas.

It promises to be a ‘fun, relaxed, interactive’ event, says Goulden, adding that this year the festival is ‘really tapping into the Prairie experience.’ In this vein, there will also be the ‘Perohi Proznik’ — a night of Ukrainian cuisine and dancing.

Screenings include Radical Dreamer: The Passionate Journey of Graham Spry, the story of one of the country’s least-known yet most influential broadcasting lobbyists, as well as a selection of shorts by independent Saskatchewan filmmakers. Delegates can also select and screen any of the more than 400 films entered in this year’s festival, making it, as Goulden says, a truly ‘user-friendly year.’