Paul Davis rides his bike to work in -40C weather.

With tiny flashing lights on his helmet and bike, he crackles over the crisp snow on the Millennium Trail, pushes his bike up the clay cliffs, crosses the Alaska Highway, then finishes the trip on back trails and small roads of Whitehorse.

"My friend introduced me to his daughter as: 'my friend Paul bikes to work year-round to save the environment. I was so proud," says Davis in his movie, -40C.

Davis recently learned, much to his surprise, that his short film was screened at Cannes Film Festival.

"I mean, it's not like it was screening side by side with (director Steven) Spielberg's film, but still," said Davis, who wasn't even sure if his film had reached the festival in time.

"It costs $4 to ship a DVD to the festival...it takes $4,000 to send a film-maker," he joked, explaining why he was unable to attend.

He only learned that the film had screened when he received an e-mail congratulating him on his achievement.

Davis has been an on-call teacher for 10 years, and in his film he says on-call janitors make more money than he does.

"On-call and almost unpaid," he says, hypothesizing that this has led to a teacher shortage in the North. He also works as volunteer firefighter.

It took Davis three years to receive approval for funding on the film. Then it took approximately six months to film.

In October 2007, -40C won "Best Canadian Short" at the Planet In Focus film festival, an environmentally-themed festival in Toronto. Later, it won a special jury mention in Tunisia and an audience choice award at a Winnipeg film festival.

"It's taken quite a voyage around," said Davis, who mentioned that the film was also screened in Czechoslovakia.

Davis said the movie would not have been possible without the support of his crew, most of whom donated huge amounts of time to making the film.

"We all wore a lot of different hats," he said, mentioning that renowned filmmaker Allan Code was indispensable.

"I feel very lucky," he said. He also expressed appreciation for Yukon musician Dave Haddock's soundtrack, which plays a huge role in the film.

Though Davis is very proud of his film, he jokes that Canadian filmmakers are still very obscure.

"I tell my friends, 'if you need to hide out from the Mafia, just become a Canadian filmmaker. No one will know who you are,'" he said.

The film has been made available at the Association franco-yukonnaise offices and the Whitehorse Public Library, as well as other libraries across the Yukon.