Yellowknife (Sep 01/04) - Come April, Yellowknife residents will be treated to a screening of "the best film anybody has ever seen."

That's according to Yellowknife filmmaker Christopher White, who just finished shooting his first feature film "Pilot" this past weekend.

Don't spend too much energy remembering the title though, because "it changes every single time I talk to someone from the media," White said.

The movie has changed quite a bit since its conception last winter.

"We were going to go with a kind of a character drama," White said. "I threw out that idea because it was crap."

The market is flooded with "introspective character-type" movies from rookie directors, White says.

The core plot idea -- a group of university students home for the summer trying hard to avoid boredom -- has remained the same, but the film is now presented as two 30-minute episodes of a television show "tied together with a bit of a documentary."

"It will hopefully be something fresh that people aren't used to seeing in the movie theatre," White said.

Help from home

White has been a filmmaker since 1998, when he was still in high school. For this film, he needed more resources than he was used to.

He turned to the NWT Arts Council for a grant. Combining this with his own money, he has spent $5,000-$6,000 on the movie.

There has been some help from individuals and organizations in the production, but "it's mostly just been my friends and me," White said. "It's been totally guerrilla-style."

The three main characters are played by White and his friends.

"I wrote the story with them in mind," White said.

He returns to the University of Alberta this week to continue his studies in the field of anthropology. He plans to edit the film this winter.

There will be a screening in Yellowknife sometime next spring, and White is working on getting a screening in an Edmonton theatre, which may lead to screenings in other major cities. If this film is received well, White hopes to get more funding for his other film ideas.