Dead North Film Festival kicks off tonight in Yellowknife

A made-in-the-Northsci-fi, horror and fantasy filmfestival, featuring offerings from all three territories, kicks off in Yellowknife tonight.

Sixteen Northern-made films double the number from lastyear will be screened at this year's Dead North Film Festival.

Anyone who is going to make films in minus -40 C temperatures,I want to see what they're going to make.- Mitch Davis, Dead North Film Festival judge

Festival co-director Jay Bulckaert has even grander ambitions for the three-year-old festival's future.

"I think it would be amazing to have acircumpolar genre film festival,where we are getting stuff from Norway, Greenland, and Iceland," he says."All north of 60."

Judges will pick theirfavourite films tonightafter screenings at Yellowknife's NorthernArts and Culture Centre.The winners will be screened at the Snow Castle on Great Slave Lake tomorrow night.

Mitch Davis,co-director of Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival one of the biggest genre film festivals in North America agreed to act as a judge for Dead North.

"Anyone who is going to make films in minus -40 C temperatures,I want to see what they're going to make," he says.