Producers Roxann Whitebean and Eva Thomas are among the five women selected for Women in View’s Five in Focus: Indigenous.

The fourth iteration of the professional development program by the non-profit gender parity organization brings together participants and mentors to help develop their projects with master classes, pitch training, project packaging, and other activities.

Joining Whitebean and Thomas are Lindsay McIntyre, Marylou Mintram and JJ Neepin. Whitebean, from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawà:ke, is the founder of indie prodco Whitebean Media Arts and has worked as a writer and director series such as Raven’s Quest and SKINdigenous. Her first documentary feature The Haudenosaunee Canoe Journey is set to broadcast on APTN next month.

Thomas comes from the Walpole Island First Nation and is Tohono O’odham, Cherokee and Scottish. Her project Coffee Express was selected for Talent to Watch in 2019 and she is in development on the series Dwayne has Issues with her producing partner Darren Anthony. McIntyre, who comes from Inuit and Scottish descent, is an award-winning cinematographer and is in development on her first feature The Words we Can’t Speak.

Mintram, from the Treaty Five Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, is co-owner of Rainy Storm Productions with fellow producer Ryan Cooper and worked as a distributor with Nish Media’s distribution arm 7th Screen. Neepin is a writer and director from the Fox Lake Cree Nation, who has directed a number of documentaries for APTN and served as associate producer on season one of Trickster.

The mentors for this year’s program are filmmakers Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (Inuit), Tracey Deer (Mohawk), Danis Goulet (Cree/Métis), Tina Keeper (Cree) and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Blackfoot/Sami). The jury tasked with selecting this years participants included CBC production executive Sarah Adams; TVO documentary programmer Linda Fong; WarnerMedia program director Melanie Nepinak Hadley (Ojibway); writer and director Zoe Leigh Hopkins (Heiltsuk & Mohawk); Shaftesbury CEO and Chairman Christina Jennings; and imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival executive director Naomi Johnson (Mohawk).

Funding for this year’s Five in Focus was provided by the Indigenous Screen Office, Telefilm Canada, Canada Media Fund, Directors Guild of Canada, and TELUS.

Pictured (L-R): Roxann Whitebean, JJ Neepin, Marylou Mintram (top), Lindsay McIntyre (botton) and Eva Thomas