How Can Internet and Alternative Distribution Methods Co-exist with Classic Distribution?
Oct 16 2008 10:00AM - 11:45AM
With the internet rapidly changing traditional models of distribution and filmmakers increasingly sharing their work on sites like Facebook and YouTube, these panelists will share their insights into the smartest way to distribute your film in the 21st century. From the perspectives of film distributors, Internet distributors, festivals and broadcasters, get the lowdown on the best release strategy for your film and the dos and don’ts of releasing a film. This panel will also showcase two innovative Internet distribution forums: IsumaTV and DigitalDrum.ca
Tom Alexander
Director, Theatrical Releasing Mongrel Media
(www.mongrelmedia.com)
Phillip Djwa
Producer, DigitalDrum.ca
(www.agentic.ca)
Shane Smith
Executive Producer, Inflight Entertainment Spafax
(www.spafax.com)
Norman Cohn and Zacharius Kunuk
Creators of IsumaTV
(www.isuma.tv)
Harold Greenberg Screenwriting Workshop
The Short and Long of Good Storytelling
Oct 16 2008 12:00PM - 1:45PM
This workshop puts emerging writer and director Shane Belcourt in conversation with writer, director and executive producer David “Sudz” Sutherland. This intimate discussion will delve into the multiple layers involved in writing a feature length film, and allow these two artists to compare notes in terms of their processes, tips for good writing, and experiences working within the landscape of Canadian film.
Sudz Sutherland
Writer/Director/Executive Producer
Sudz Sutherland works on both sides of the fence as a freelance writer and director for dramas and documentaries. His latest feature film project, Toronto Stories, was conceived in conjunction with three other rising directors and was invited to the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Sudz recently completed the dramatic miniseries Guns for CBC based on four families caught up in illegal gun trafficking. Sudz also wrote and directed the triple Gemini award-winning (Best Direction, Best Supporting actress, Best Television Movie) Doomstown, an MOW for CTV/Sarrazin-Couture. Sudz’ sophomore feature film Home Again, slated for production this year, is the follow up to his multiple award-winning and Genie nominated debut feature film Love, Sex and Eating the Bones. He is currently developing two other feature films, The Way The Ball Bounces and Operation Red Dog.
Shane Belcourt
Writer/Director/Musician
Shane Belcourt is an award-winning Métis filmmaker, writer and musician based in Toronto. His feature film, Tkaronto, has played many international film festivals, most recently winning the Best Director prize at the 2008 Dreamspeakers Film Festival and 2008 Talking Stick Film Festival, and has since been picked up by a national distributor (Kinosmith) which has released the film across Canada. Shane’s two short films, The Squeeze Box and Pookums have been picked up and sold to national Canadian TV networks and are featured on IsumaTV. Alongside the dramatic work, Shane continues to make documentary films as a director and cinematographer and has two projects in development, a half-hour documentary on problem gambling in Aboriginal communities and a short animated documentary about growing up the son of a Métis rights leader, Red Car, Blue Hood. Shane and his co-writing partner, Duane Murray, are developing a variety of projects, most notably the next feature film.
Shane was the recipient of the 2007 IFC Mentorship Award and one of 22 filmmakers chosen for the 2007 TIFF Talent Lab. Most recently Shane wrote and directed the 2008 imagineNATIVE festival trailer Indian Jane.
Meet the Buyers
Who Buys What?
Oct 16 2008 2:00PM - 3:45PM
This jam-packed panel will feature visiting international and Canadian buyers attending this year’s imagineNATIVE Festival. Find out what they are looking for, how much they will pay, what rights they want to secure, and other important information to help your current or future projects reach their audiences?
Moderator: Jason RyleWriter/Director/Programmer, imagineNATIVE Board Chair
Guadalupe Arensburg, Acquisitions & Programming, Canal + Espagne, Spain (www.plus.es)
Li-Yi Chien, Acquisitions Manager, Producer, Taiwan Indigenous Television,
TITV Cinema, Taiwan (www.titv.org.tw/about_e1.htm)
Tanya Denning, Commissioning Editor, National Indigenous TV Limited, Australia (www.nitv.org.au)
João Garção Borges, Programmer and Buyer, ONDA CURTA (Short Wave), RTP2 (TV Public Service of Portugal) (www.rtp.pt)
Kyle Harris, Acquisitions Manager, Free Speech TV, USA (www.freespeech.org)
Joe Kulin, Media Consultant, Global Spirit, LINK TV (www.linktv.org)
Jack Ofield, Executive Producer, The Short List, PBS, Cox Media, USA, Movieola, Canada
Manutai Schuster, Head of Acquisitions & Commissioning, Māori Television, New Zealand (www.maoritelevision.com)
Desiree Single, Manger of Programming, Central Region, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Canada (www.aptn.ca)
Takin’ Charge: Filmmaker Panel for Youth
Oct 16 2008 2:00PM - 4:00PM
Do you have a great idea for a film but are not sure how to get it made? Do you think about your future in media, but don’t know what steps to take to get there? This panel is an opportunity for youth to learn from emerging and accomplished Aboriginal media artists and filmmakers who will share how they got their start. Panelists will tell you about their exciting projects and share their
experiences in the Canadian film-industry. imagineNATIVE wants you to think about yourself behind or in front of the camera, and each panelist will be ready to answer your questions to help you make this a reality!
Supported by Canada Council for the Arts, the McLean Foundation, Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment & Training, National Film Board of Canada, and the Native Canadian Centre for Toronto
Director, Writer, Artist, and Indigenous youth advocate
Shane Belcourt
Writer, Director, Pookums (2006), Tkaronto (2007)
Tracey Deer
Writer, Director, Mohawk Girls (2005), Club Native (2007)
Adam Garnet Jones
Writer, Director, Cloudbreaker (2006), A Small Thing (2008)
Curtis Beardy
Co-Director, Mino Bimaadziwin (Touching the Sky) (2008)
Duke Redbird
Senior Guest Artist
Reporter, CityPulse
Writer, They Call Me Chief, The New Ghostdancers
Director, The New Ghostdancers, He Who Looks
Upside Down: A Question of Justice
Associate Producer, Dance Me Outside
Documentary Pitch Competition
Oct 17 2008 10:00AM - 11:15AM
Do you have a great idea for a short (under 23 min) documentary? Come and pitch to an audience of
commissioning editors and acquisitions executives from the major Canadian broadcasters. Pitches have been pre-selected by the imagineNATIVE Programming Committee and pitch team representatives have received a free one-day intensive pitch training session from industry professional Deborah Day. If time permits, Wild Card pitches will be accepted from the audience. Wild Card pitches are not eligible for the award. The Documentary Pitch winner will receive the use of CBC Newsworld’s 3CCD HDV camera for one month. The winner will be announced at the Closing Night Awards, for more information Click Here.
Director, Producer, Co-Founder of Canadian Accents
(www.canadianaccents.ca)
Naomi Boxer
Documentary Programmer, TVOntario
(www.tvo.org)
Charlotte Engel
Production Executive, Documentary and Alternative Programming, CTV Television Inc
(www.ctv.ca)
Sarah Jane Flynn
Director, Factual Content, Canwest Broadcasting
(www.canwest.com)
Andrew Johnson
Commissioning Editor, The Lens, CBC Newsworld
(www.cbc.ca/thelens)
Show Me the Drama!
Pitch Competition for Dramatic Works
Oct 17 2008 11:30AM - 12:45PM
Get your idea heard by the people who can make it happen! This is your opportunity to pitch your idea for a short, feature or series drama to broadcasters who will provide valuable feedback. Pitches have been pre-selected by the imagineNATIVE Programming Committee and pitch team representatives have received a free one-day intensive pitch training session from industry professional Deborah Day. If time permits, Wild Card pitches may be accepted from the audience. Wild Card pitches are not eligible for the award. The Drama Pitch winner will take home a $5,000
Development Deal from Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network (APTN). The winner will be announced at the Closing Night Awards, for more information Click Here.
Director, Producer, Co-Founder of Canadian Accents (www.canadianaccents.ca)
Trish Williams
Manager, Development & Productions, CTVglobemedia
Stephen Finney
Production Executive, Drama Content, Canwest
Broadcasting
Desiree Single
Manger of Programming, Central Region, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (www.aptn.ca)
Robin Neinstein
Executive in Charge of Production, Drama, CBC
Television (www.cbc.ca)
Exploring Creative and Traditional Funding Sources
Oct 18 2008 10:00AM - 11:30AM
Seeking funding for your next project? Looking for new ideas? Get the scoop on funding sources as this year’s panelists tackle everything from broadcast pre-sales, seeking private funds, seed grants, Aboriginal funding streams and raising money through the Internet.
Moderator: Gisele GordonDirector, Producer, imagineNATIVE Board Vice-Chair
Francesca Accinellia
Director of Television for the English Market
Television Business Unit, Canadian Television Fund (www.canadiantelevisionfund.ca)
Anne Frank
Content Analyst, Telefilm Canada (www.telefilm.gc.ca)
John Galway
President, English Language, Astral Media The Harold Greenberg Fund
Sudha Krishna
Director of Cross-Media Production & Co-founder, Nimble TV (www.thenimblecompany.com)
Catherine Kunz
Account Manager, Commercial Banking, TV and Motion Picture Group, National Bank (www.nbc.ca)
Bird Runningwater
Programmer, Associate Director, Native-American and Indigenous Initiative Sundance Film Festival (www.sundance.org/festival)
One on One with Producer Lisa Meeches
Oct 18 2008 11:45AM - 1:15PM
Lisa Meeches began her career in 1986 with the Winnipeg-based Native Media Network where she worked compiling radio reports for a native talk show. Her professional work experience then broadened to include news reporting for Craig Broadcasting Systems where she established a liaison team who connected the newsroom with surrounding First Nations communities. In 2002, Meeches completed the Alliance Atlantis Executive Producers’ Program at The Banff Centre, honing her skills with some of the top names in Canadian production. She is now an Executive Producer and the President of two Winnipeg-based production companies, Eagle Vision Inc. and Meeches Video Productions, and the Co-President of Century Street Distribution. Meeches was a Producer on Elijah - the true story of Elijah Harper, one of the greatest heroes in Canadian Aboriginal political history - which Eagle Vision co-produced with Anagram Pictures for CTV and APTN. She is also the Executive Producer, Producer, and Co-Host of the award winning series The Sharing Circle, currently in production of its sixteenth season. She is an Executive Producer of Tipi Tales, currently in its Third Season, and of the documentaries Polygamy’s Lost Boys, The Spirit of Norway House and Where Three Rivers Meet.
In 2007 Lisa Meeches was awarded and Aboriginal Achievement Award for her work. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Producer, Actor
Jennifer Podemski is an award winning actor/producer and the president of Redcloud Studios Inc. an independent film and television production company based in Toronto. Jennifer ‘s most recent projects include: Rabbit Fall I & II, a supernatural crime drama for APTN and Space; Sight Unseen, a feature length drama in development with the Canadian Film Centre and she is currently the Co-Executive Producer of the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards (Global Television, APTN, E!)
Walking the Line: Does Portraying Harsh Realities Reinforce Negative Stereotypes?
Oct 18 2008 1:30PM - 3:00PM
Do Indigenous filmmakers have a responsibility to reflect positive images of themselves in order to counter negative stereotypes? In this panel, filmmakers will address what it means to express a story or explore a character in a meaningful and authentic way. The filmmakers will discuss whether or not they have an ethical responsibility to leave the darker aspects of a story, character or subject’s personality on the cutting room floor, as well as the challenges of fighting for the story they feel must be told.
Moderator: Lisa JacksonWriter, Director, Producer
Andrew Okpeaha Maclean
Andrew Okpeaha Maclean is an award-winning filmmaker whose previous films have screened at imagineNATIVE and internationally including the Sundance Film Festival and the Museum of Modern Art. His film Sikumi, the first film ever told in the Inupiat language, was awarded a jury prize for Short Filmmaking at Sundance 2008. In the Summer of 2008, Andrew was listed in Filmmaker Magazine as one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
Tracey Deer, Filmmaker
Mohawk filmmaker Tracey Deer is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of Canada’s finest chroniclers of modern Aboriginal life. She co-directed the feature-length documentary One More River about the 2003 agreement between the Cree and Quebec. In 2004, she made Mohawk Girls, a moving portrait of three teenage girls coming of age on her home reserve of Kahnawake, just outside of Montreal. Tracey graduated in film studies at Dartmouth College in 2000 where she shot, directed and edited three short films before receiving the 25th Anniversary Film and Television Award for overall achievement in film studies. Her films have been broadcast and screened across Canada.
Darlene Johnson, Director
One of Australia’s most promising and talented Indigenous filmmakers, Darlene Johnson’s first drama Two-Bob Mermaid won the Australian Film Critics Circle Award for Best Australian Short Film (1996). She has written and directed numerous celebrated documentaries, including the award winning Stolen Generations, and Stranger in my Skin. She has also completed a documentary Following the Rabbit Proof Fence on the making of the feature drama Rabbit Proof Fence, which follows the process of how three young Aboriginal girls were plucked from their communities and cast in a Hollywood movie. Her documentary River of No Return was selected to open this year’s imagineNATIVE.
Hubert Davis, Director
Hubert Davis’s directorial debut began with the documentary Hardwood which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005 and an Emmy in 2006. Hubert’s first fictional short Aruba had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, was an official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival 2006 and won the Grand Jury Award at the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films 2006. Hubert was the 2007 recipient of the Don Haig Award for an emerging filmmaker whose work has bridged the documentary and fiction filmmaking worlds. He is currently working on a feature documentary The Invisible City, following the lives of residents of a housing project. Previously, he worked as an editor and was an assistant editor on films such as Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood/Hollywood and The Republic of Love.
