Director and academic R. Bruce Elder will later this month take home a Governor General’s Award for his ‘highly innovative’ and ‘influential’ work as a critic, teacher and experimental filmmaker. Elder — director of the communications graduate program at Toronto’s Ryerson University — is among eight painters, sculptors and other artists named on Tuesday as recipients of this year’s visual and media arts awards from Governor General Michaëlle Jean.

Elder’s work includes the 20-film cycle The Book of All the Dead, the 1990 feature Flesh Angels and a cinematographer stint on the 1998 doc Brakhage, a biopic about fellow experimenter Stan Brakhage.

Jean will present the awards in Ottawa on Friday, and in a statement praised the winners for ‘broaden[ing] our horizons through the unique power of creation. You continually open our eyes to everything that is beautiful in the world and we thank you for that.’

The award comes with $25,000, increased this year from $15,000. Other winners include painter Fernand Leduc, and sculptors Aganetha Dyck and Ian Carr-Harris.