The 18th annual Whistler Film Festival has selected seven finalists for its Indigenous Filmmaker Fellowship, including Trevor Mack (pictured) and Amber Sekowan-Daniels.

The four-day immersive program, which takes place during the festival, aims to advance the development of scripted projects.

This year’s participants include B.C.-based Mack, an alum of the TIFF Talent Lab, who will develop his feature project, Portraits from a Fire. Developing short-form projects are Ontario’s Amber Sekowan-Daniels (The Man With No Head), B.C’s Jade Baxter (Hunting Party of Two), and Manitoba’s Roger Boyer (The Fire). Also participating in the program with shorts are Alberta’s Heather Hatch (Wrecked), Trevor Soloway (Sandhills) and Manitoba’s Darcy Waite (Zombies Don’t Eat Dumb People), who just picked up ImagineNATIVE’s rising producer award. 

The filmmaking fellows will be advised by program facilitator Kyle Irving of Eagle Vision; as well as guests and mentors such as CMF president and CEO Valerie Creighton; Indigenous Screen Office director Jesse Wente; Corus Entertainment’s manager of original content, drama and factual Kathleen Meek; APTN’s manager of programming for the western region Tania Koenig-Gauchier; director Shane Belcourt; senior director of CBC Films Mehernaz Lentin and entertainment lawyer Nathaniel Lyman.

The Indigenous Filmmaker Fellowship is supported by Creative BC, CMF, APTN, Eagle Vision and the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre.