University of Regina prof’s experimental film wins RIFFA award

Mark Wihak’s experimental short documentary is only seven minutes long, but it took 365 days to film.

The University of Regina film professor screened his award-winning short film, titled “Daytoday,” in front of a hometown audience last week as part of the Regina International Film Festival. The film won the Saskatchewan Short Film category.

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He shot half the diary-style documentary from his house, including scenes from his daily routine.

“There’s regular shots from a bakery and regular shots from a drugstore, where I went to pick up prescriptions,” he said.

The film documented his travel to five provinces, 18 different cities and towns, two American states and a couple highways in Alberta and Ontario.

“And then one shot from an airplane somewhere over Lake Superior,” Wihak added.

The film contains a narration about the history of time, the way humans have measured time over thousands of years across different cultures and how the idea of time continues to change.

The filmmaker said he hadn’t been inside a movie theatre since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was really nice to have that experience of seeing a film on a big screen, but also to be in a theater full of Saskatchewan filmmakers and people wanted to see films made,” he said.

RIFFA Saskatchewan Short Film award winning film, day to day, contains a narration about the history of time, the way humans have measured time over thousands of years across different cultures, and how the idea of time continues to change. (RIFFA/Facebook)

The documentary was something he has wanted to do since the late 1980s when he was a film student, but was too costly to do at that time.

Even when the film industry entered the digital age, he said he never got around to making the film a reality. Ultimately, a health crisis and family matters spurred him on to start the project.

“I think it’s a way to distract myself. I thought, ‘OK, I’m gonna start shooting something,’ just so I can have something else to think about for the 15 to 20 minutes every day that I shoot something,” said Wihak, who has been making films since 1992.

Regina International Film Festival had its gala Aug. 23 at Darke Hall, where winners were announced for their 15 categories. (Florence Hwang/980 CJME)

Wihak said he’s honoured his film was chosen as a winner, but he has mixed feelings about awards in general.

“I think awards for films are kind of weird. Films aren’t in competition with each other, and it’s kind of comparing apples and oranges. Every short film that I saw on Friday night was very different from the other ones. And so I don’t think you can say one of these films is better than the others,” he said.

Only the person making the film knows what they are trying to do and can really judge whether their film succeed or not, he added.