Latest news with #IndigenousCinema
CBC
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Indigenous-led projects are landing hits and winning awards. How are they making inroads?
Cody Lightning is far from alone. First of all, the Edmonton-based creator is surrounded by fellow community members on the set of Smudge the Blades, his upcoming film about hockey, growing up and Indigenous identity. But he's also part of a wave of new Indigenous talent — a raft of creators crafting a host of projects that, Lightning said, is unlike anything he's seen in his 30 years in the industry. "Throughout my adolescent years and teenage years, it was roles that I auditioned for, that were presented to me. And I adapted to that — to someone else's story," he said. "There was, like, one project per year that everyone knew about — everyone was trying to be on those projects. And now we're making our own." Alongside his upcoming film, there are projects running the gamut — from Reservation Dogs, the series about four Indigenous teenagers in Oklahoma that aired for three seasons on FX, to Rutherford Falls, the Michael Greyeyes-starring comedy written by Indigenous comedian Jana Schmieding. And then there are this year's Canadian Screen Awards-nominated titles North of North, Don't Even and Bones of Crows. Those projects are paired with Indigenous talent stepping in front of the camera, from Season 4 of True Detective, to Indigenous stars in series Dark Winds, American Primeval and Alaska Daily. Perhaps most notable is Lily Gladstone, who became the first Indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Academy Award — and the first to win a Golden Globe — for her turn in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. As to why we're seeing the swell now, Indigenous filmmaker and actor Jennifer Podemski said there are multiple reasons. The first could be historically laid groundwork. As Podemski has spoken about in the past, Indigenous-led productions often included mentorship programs, designed to train up-and-coming Indigenous creators to be ready to launch their own careers. That, she said, has paired with a shifted lens from decision-makers. Specifically, after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, studios changed how they looked for talent. WATCH | Filmmaker and actor Jennifer Podemski on Indigenous resilience: Filmmaker/Actor Jennifer Podemski on Indigenous resilience 7 months ago Duration 1:46 Filmmaker and veteran actor Jennifer Podemski sat down with Tom Power to discuss her new series, Little Bird, how the story resonates with her own family history and making a production company that tells Indigenous stories with authenticity. "When people are casting for movies, they're more inclined to question ... 'Am I on the right side of history here, or am I perpetuating harmful narratives?'" Podemski said of the shift following Floyd's murder. "People became a little bit more aware of the steps that they were taking, and that's why we were seeing more Indigenous people on screen, maybe, where we wouldn't otherwise have seen them." Centralized source of funding As for the shift behind the camera and north of the border, Podemski credits that more to executive changes — specifically to the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO), which was created in 2017-18. While it began as an advocacy group, in 2021, the ISO began receiving federal funding earmarked for distribution to any Indigenous-led production headed to the screen. Kristy Assu, its director of funding programs, said that outreach has been furthered now that the ISO receives permanent government funding — including about $65 million to be distributed over the next five years. And starting this year, the ISO will administer the Canadian Media Fund's Indigenous Program, which allocates roughly $10 million annually to Indigenous-led productions. That sets up the ISO as a centralized source of funding for Indigenous creators in Canada, which has never happened before, Assu said. As a filmmaker herself, she said the change helps to break down systemic obstacles in the industry: While the Canadian Media Fund's Indigenous Program existed previously, there was "very little to access" — even more so for emerging, unestablished filmmakers, she said. "I think that's why we're seeing this huge surge in [Indigenous] filmmakers," Assu said. "Because there's access to funding now, there's support. People can make a living on being a creative in this industry." As well, with Indigenous people allocating the funding themselves, rather than through an intermediary organization, a more central issue emerges: narrative sovereignty. The term refers to a group able to choose how it's represented — and in a larger sense determine how it's perceived by society at large. That has been an especially entrenched issue in this country; the very concept and word "documentary" was first coined by National Film Board of Canada founder John Grierson in his review of American filmmaker Robert Flaherty's 1926 movie Moana. Both that film and his earlier Inuit-focused Nanook of the North — widely considered to be the first commercially successful documentary — used Indigenous people as their subjects. Particularly in Nanook, Flaherty's work has come under increasing scrutiny for staged scenes and general inaccuracies, with its widespread success continuing to reinforce romanticized and stereotypical aspects of a people who were unable to establish their own identity through film. 'Cost of carelessness' "Because of filmmakers like Flaherty, we've seen the damage wrought by policies built on visual misrepresentation, salvage ethnography, and the lines of ownership that become purposefully blurred by others extracting our own images," Indigenous filmmaker Adam Piron wrote for the International Documentary Association about Nanook. "For Indigenous artists, there's an added weight to engaging with the moving image because we know the cost of carelessness." An entrenched and inaccurate depiction of Indigenous people and their stories, Lightning said, led to decades of period pieces he described as "leathers and feathers" — productions that utilized pop culture ideas of various Indigenous groups, while barring those people from input into how their stories should actually be told. At the same time, there has been consistent pushback, such as Toronto-born Indigenous actor D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who starred in Reservation Dogs, attending the 2024 Emmy Awards with a red handprint on his face. The makeup was intended to bring attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women, and, according to the organization Native Hope, "the silence of the media and law enforcement in the midst of this crisis." Lightning said that rebellious streak has only increased in recent years. "I want our younger generations in this industry to push boundaries, make people feel a little uncomfortable at times," he said. "That's good. I'm looking forward to that. Those are the filmmakers I wanna see." And while territorial sovereignty — the ability to decide on laws within proscribed borders — is a topic often touched on for Indigenous people in Canada, Podemski said the right and ability to control how, and which, stories are told about them is also of huge importance. As an example, she told the story of how just the day before, a passport agent made an offhand complaint about her getting "stuff for free" after seeing her Indigenous status card — a discriminatory response that a 2022 study by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs found 99 per cent of Indigenous respondents had experienced. The team behind North of North on making TV magic in the Canadian Arctic 5 months ago Duration 2:49 Actor Anna Lambe and the co-creators of the new CBC co-production North of North talk to the CBC's Eli Glasner about how the Iqaluit community came together to bring the heartwarming comedy to life. Podemski said she spent the next 20 minutes speaking about that stereotype to the agent, who said apologetically that she simply hadn't heard the historical context before. "Afterwards I thought, 'You know what? This is why I do what I do,'" Podemski said. "Because if we take up space on the screen, and if we help people to understand a little bit more about who we are in our own communities and in our own experiences, then maybe they won't write us off as easily as they do."
CTV News
02-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
‘The Apprentice,' ‘Canada's Drag Race' among big winners at Canadian Screen Awards
Daniel Bekerman, producer of "The Apprentice," winner of Best Motion Picture, poses for a photo at the Canadian Screen Awards, in Toronto, Sunday, June 1, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young A film chronicling the rise of Donald Trump won best motion picture at the Canadian Screen Awards on Sunday, where its Toronto-born producer used his acceptance speech to address the U.S. president's threats to Canadian sovereignty. Daniel Bekerman is the lead producer of 'The Apprentice,' a Canada-Ireland-Denmark co-production that portrays how Trump got started in the real-estate industry and honed his persona under the mentorship of controversial fixer Roy Cohn. 'Our movie shows how the young Donald Trump amassed wealth and power by finding a dilapidated building and slapping his name on it,' said Bekerman on stage at the CBC headquarters in Toronto. 'As president, he's doing the same thing with the economy -- we'll see how that works out. But now he wants to slap his name on this country. This is a challenge, but it is a good challenge.' Bekerman went on to say he's inspired by the rise of Indigenous and queer cinema in Canada, but that he wants the country's independent film community to band together. 'When we're faced with power structures that want to silence us, we can't do it in isolation. It's time to link arms, stand our ground and tell stories with enough honesty that we can build a country that has trust at its core. So in this complex and chaotic world, we can survive and thrive together.' Sunday's show had several calls to support homegrown content amid U.S-Canada tensions, capping off a multi-day celebration of Canadian film, television and digital storytelling. Matthew Rankin's absurdist dramedy 'Universal Language' also had a strong showing, as the filmmaker took home the best director trophy. This brought the film's Screen Awards tally to six after it dominated Saturday's industry gala for cinematic arts, where it nabbed best original screenplay, casting and art direction. On the red carpet before the show, Rankin reflected on the definition of Canadian content amid political tensions with the U.S. over tariffs and sovereignty. 'We're in this political moment where we have to reckon with what Canada means, and ideally we should be thinking also about what it will mean as we go forward and what cinema can contribute to that,' the filmmaker said. 'I think of Canada as a space that should constantly be redefined. But usually, when I identify something as being Canadian, I think it feels like a President's Choice Hollywood movie,' Rankin quipped. On the TV side, Crave's drag queen competition series 'Canada's Drag Race' won best reality program, bringing its Screen Awards total to eight -- the most overall. The series took home several trophies at an industry gala earlier in the weekend, including best host for Hytes, Brad Goreski and Traci Melchor. 'Canada's Drag Race' judge Brooke Lynn Hytes thanked her fellow queens while accepting the award. 'Thank you for coming on TV, sharing your stories, and letting it all hang out literally and figuratively,' she said. 'We're all just so grateful to be here and get to celebrate queer people in queer spaces on national TV.' Citytv's 'Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent,' which led all nominees with 20, won best drama series. It wound up pocketing three awards in total, including best writing in a drama series and best sound in fiction. Comedian Lisa Gilroy opened the show with several self-deprecating jokes while also taking light jabs at celebrities and calling on Canadians to toast homegrown fare. 'We're here to celebrate an industry that's helped birth enormous global stars like Drake,' Gilroy said on stage at CBC headquarters in her opening monologue. 'And commemorate stars we've lost in the past year, like Drake.' In an opening skit, actor Will Sasso referred to Gilroy, who is from Edmonton and based in Los Angeles, as the 'Canadian Nikki Glaser only less successful,' to which she retorted, 'Exactly.' Gilroy also joked that Australian actress Cate Blanchett was in the building -- before the camera panned to a mannequin donning a dress in the audience. Blanchett later won in absentia for best lead performance in a comedy for her role in Guy Maddin's 'Rumours.' CTV's 'Children Ruin Everything' won best comedy, adding to its previous three wins, including best ensemble performance. The sitcom is created by Ottawa's Kurt Smeaton and stars Meaghan Rath and Aaron Abrams as a couple trying to carve out an identity beyond parenthood. It won four trophies overall. Andrew Phung of CBC's 'Run the Burbs' won for best lead performer in a comedy series. 'The Apprentice' won five Screen Awards in total, including best performance in a lead role for Sebastian Stan's turn as Trump, and best supporting actor for Jeremy Strong's portrayal of Cohn. Trump's team attempted to block the film's theatrical release last fall, calling it 'election interference by Hollywood elites' and threatening to file a lawsuit. Last month, Bekerman told The Canadian Press that Trump's threat to impose a 100 per cent tariff on foreign films, citing national security, felt like a veiled reference to 'The Apprentice.' Bekerman denied that his film is a national security threat but said it might instead be 'an ego security threat' for Trump. 'This is not some sort of political attack film,' Bekerman said. 'It's actually not at all what it is. It is a humanistic story about choices people make in their lives and the consequences of those choices.' By Alex Nino Gheciu This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 1, 2025. Crave, CTV News and CP24 are owned by Bell Media, which is a division of BCE.
