Indigenous Filmmaking Now: AN OVERVIEW
What’s happening now?
Although Canada’s media establishment may claim things are better, where are the opportunities for Indigenous film and TV creatives this year and next? It’s still a tough slog as a producer or filmmaker to receive funding, get opportunities to be employed in higher and mid-level positions where the decisions are made, or to have any control. There are success stories, but many Indigenous filmmakers in documentary, film, and TV are struggling to get the support they need from the major Canadian funding bodies.
Producer and independent arts consultant Jason Ryle, formerly imagineNATIVE’s executive director for a decade, says that the struggle and mission continue to be getting people to understand the impact of narrative sovereignty, of telling our stories. “It’s been really important to have Indigenous people make decisions on which projects are funded,” he says, adding that he is a member of the NFB’s Indigenous Advisory Board. “Telefilm and the Canada Media Fund have had long stretches of time where they’ve had zero Indigenous employees, and the numbers are still small, and that’s a challenge.
“If we’re thinking about Indigenous cinema writ large, a cornerstone of that will be stories about residential schools, the impact of colonization, missing and murdered Indigenous women and post-colonial realities, in the same way that many Black filmmakers will tell stories about civil rights or overcoming slavery, or Jewish filmmakers will tell stories about the Holocaust,” he continues. “Those aren’t the only kinds of films that these filmmakers make, by any stretch of the imagination; now
