Miles Morrisseau
ICT
Indigenous creatives in film, TV and digital media are being celebrated this year in the Canadian Screen Awards, where record numbers of Indigenous artists across the board have been nominated for recognition.
The film “Little Bird” leads all TV productions with 19 nominations, including Darla Contois, Misipawistik Cree Nation, for Best Lead Performer in a Drama Series; Zoe Hopkins, Heiltsuk/Mohawk for Best Direction; and Charity Gadica, Peepeekiskis First Nation, for Best Costume design.
Dozens of Indigenous creatives are among the nominees.
“It’s a record year at the Canadian Screen Awards,” said Kerry Swanson, Michipicoten First Nation, chief executive officer of the Indigenous Screen Office in Canada since 2022. “‘Little Bird’ alone has 19 nominations and they were nominated across all categories, everything from best direction to the performances to visual research.
“It’s really a testament to that sector development, the fact that we’ve gotten nominations not just on the creative side, but below the line in roles across the board,” Swanson told ICT via Zoom while attending the Yorkton Film Festival in northeastern Saskatchewan.
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Swanson has watched the evolution of Indigenous film, television and digital creatives in Canada for more than 20 years, serving as executive director and board chair of imagineNATIVE, Canada’s largest Indigenous film festival, before moving to the Indigenous Screen Office, an advocacy and funding organization.
“Our advocacy work is really grounded in the idea of narrative sovereignty – Indigenous narrative sovereignty on screens meaning Indigenous ownership and control,” she said. “The second component of what we do is funding. So we fund all stages of production, from development to post-production to distribution and promotion, and we also fund a number of initiatives for sector development.”
Swanson sees that investment into all levels of film and television production paying off with this year’s record nominations. ISO provided production support for ‘Little Bird’ as well as training and mentorship opportunities. “Little Bird” aired originally on Canadian stations but is now available on PBS,
“That show was sold to PBS, so it’s going to resonate across Turtle Island and beyond,” Swanson said. “It’s won a number of international awards as well. And so this is the kind of storytelling that we’re really proud to support.”
The Canadian Screen Awards will be announced during a live broadcast airing on Friday, May 31, on CBC and CBC Gem.
Films
A number of other films are also nominated for awards this year.
An over-the-top meta comedy, ”Hey Viktor,” is up for three awards. The mockumentary is a hilarious Quixote story with the deluded knight replaced by an actor who was over the hill before he got through puberty. The film is destined to become a cult classic as it tells a tale of trying to get a remake of another cult classic, “Smoke Signals.”
The movie is both hilarious and also disgusting and poignant, which is a hard thing to achieve. Its writer/director/star Cody Lighting deserves credit for hitting all those points, however. He is nominated for Best Performance in a Comedy and Best Original Screenplay, along with Samuel Miller. The film’s Hannah Cheesman also received a nomination for Performance in a Supporting Role.
Related stories from ICT:
—Acting Good is Canada’s funniest TV show
—Indigenous girls on on aliens in Slash/Back
—‘Little Bird’ television series explores Sixties Scoop
Other Indigenous-led films to receive nominations include “Cold Road,” directed by Kelvin Redvers of the Deninu Kųę́ First Nation, which received a nomination for Sound Mixing. The pulse-pounding thriller stars Roseanne Supernault, Whitefish Lake Atikameg First Nation/East Prairie Métis, who is part of the cast of “Acting Good,” which has been nominated in the television category.
Inuk actress Alexis Vincent-Wolfe from Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, is nominated for her performance in the film, “Slash/Back,” for Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film.
“Twice Colonized,” was nominated for the Ted Rogers Best Feature Length Documentary, with nominations for Lin Alluna; Stacey Aglok Macdonald, Inuk; Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Inuk; Emile Hertling Péronard; and Bob Moore. The film also received a nomination for Best Original Music in a Feature Length Documentary.
And the documentary, ”Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun,” by Nuxalt filmmaker Banchi Hanuse, received a nomination for Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary.
Television
“Little Bird” is nominated in the television category for Best Drama Series.
It is a fictional story centered around the realities of the Sixties Scoop, a Canadian governmental program that took Indigenous children including babies from their families and placed them in White families. The government program had devastating impacts on the children and the families left behind and the intergenerational impacts echo in Indigenous communities today.
The series was created by actress/film producer Jennifer Podemski and Hannah Moscovitch. Podemski, who is Jewish/Anishinaabe/Leni Lenape/Métis, is one of three sisters with acclaimed careers in Canada who are making waves south of the border.
Podemski played a lead role in one of the first films in Canada to have Indigenous leads, “Dance me Outside,” in 1994. She has since acted in the acclaimed series, “Reservation Dogs,” as well as “Tin Star,” “The Rez,” “Riverdale” and “Moccasin Flats.” Her production credits include “Rabbit Fall,” “Moccasin Flats,” and “Empire of Dirt.”
And in 2023, she won the coveted Audience Award at the 2023 Series Mania Festival in Lille, France, and was presented with an Academy Board Of Directors’ Tribute Award at the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards.
Her sisters, Tamara and Sarah Podemski, also have their own screen credits. Tamara Podemski has also appeared in the film, “Adam Beach,” and Sarah played a recurring role on the acclaimed “Reservation Dogs” series, among others.
In addition to her nominations in both the Best Drama Series and Best Visual Research for “Little Bird,” Jennifer Podemski is nominated as a producer and director in documentary categories.
“Little Bird is a great example of a story that’s really told through an Indigenous lens, and that centering of the Indigenous perspective has really resonated with audiences and with the industry and just really demonstrates the potential for this kind of storytelling, which we really haven’t had the opportunity to see at those higher budget levels,” Swanson told ICT.
Also in the television category are two Indigenous documentary films that are nominated for Best Documentary program, “The Cowichan Sweater: Our Knitted Legacy,” and “War for the Woods.”
Also nominated for Best Factual Series are “Thunder Bay” and “Little Big Community.” “Thunder Bay” also received nominations for Best Direction, Factual, and Best Writing, Factual.
Two Indigenous lead productions, “Mi’Kma’Ki,” and “Telling Our Story,” are nominated in the television category for Best History Documentary Program or Series.
Another documentary nomination in the television category includes “Wanna Icipus Kupi: Coming Home,” which is nominated for the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program. The film marks the directorial debut from Cree/Ojibway filmmaker Erica Daniels of Peguis First Nation.
The “Acting Good” comedy series is nominated in television for Best Ensemble Performance in a Comedy. The absurdly and honestly funny series, about going back to the rez, stars stand-up comedian Paul Rabliauskas in the lead, with Tina Keeper, who is also a producer of the show, as his loving mother, and Supernault as his sister and nemesis.
Two award nominations are going to the Indspire Awards 2023, the annual celebration of Indigenous excellence at the community, national and international level. The 30th anniversary show is up for Best Biography or Arts Documentary Program or Series and Best Direction, Documentary Program. .
News and information
In the news and information category, APTN has drawn two nominations, for Best News or Information Program for “APTN Investigates: Buried Truths,” and for APTN’s Dennis Ward, Métis Nation, nominated for Best News Anchor, National.
Sarain Fox, Anishinaabe, of VeraCity, was nominated for Best Host or Interviewer, News or Information, for her work on “Indigiqueer.”
Digital media
Nominees in the Digital Media category include “Indigenous Futures: How these Teens are Reclaiming their Joy,” for Best Web Program or Series, Non-Fiction. The show centers on a roundtable discussion featuring Indigenous youth talking about their dreams and challenges.
“This is not a ceremony,” by Niitsitapi writer and director Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon) is nominated for Best Immersive Experience. It is a stunning cinematic virtual reality experience that takes the viewers on a journey guided by spirits that confront the dark sides of living while Indigenous in Canada.
State of the industry
The nominations acknowledge the current wave of Indigenous excellence as well as those in the past and future.
Devery Jacobs, “Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory” will receive the Radius Award given to an artist whose work has had a resounding global Impact. A star of “Reservation Dogs” was noted as an artist “who uses her platform to advocate for Indigenous and LGBTQ2S+ rights.”
Jeff Barnaby, the late Mi’kmaq filmmaker who gave Jacobs her first lead role in his film, “Rhymes for Young Ghouls,” will be honored with a memorial ceremony.
“Jeff is a great example, a masterful storyteller who was one of the first to really use genre to tackle the story of colonization and the lived experience, the horror of colonization,” Swanson said. “Many filmmakers since have followed in his footsteps and are using genre as a really powerful tool to tell that story.”
Swanson is excited about the current state of Indigenous film, television and digital creation and she is even more excited to see what comes next.
“In the past, there was really an idea from the industry of what an Indigenous sort of story or movie looked like and felt like,” she said. “Indigenous people have really broken out and demonstrated that Indigenous storytelling is a wide spectrum of genres and perspectives and different ways of making content on screen.
“I’m excited about that because we don’t we don’t know what’s coming next,” she said. “Our filmmakers and producers just continue to surprise us with the way that they approach storytelling.”
More info
For a complete list of nominees for the 2024 Canadian Screen Awards, visit the website.
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