Caroline Monnet’s Bootlegger, Landon Dyksterhouse’s Warrior Spirit and Zacharias Kunuk’s Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice were big winners at the 2021 imagineNATIVE Festival Awards, held online yesterday (Oct. 24).

Monnet’s 81-minute Canadian drama Bootlegger won the Dramatic Feature Award. The film, which centres on an Indigenous university graduate student named Mani (Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs) who returns to her Quebec reserve community to advocate for a referendum banning the sale of alcohol, garnered Monnet and co-writer Daniel Watchorn the Cinéfondation bursary for Best Screenplay at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Monnet also won Emerging Canadian Director at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival.

Documentary Feature Award winner Warrior Spirit, directed by Landon Dyksterhouse, is the story of the Nicco Montano of the Navajo Nation, the UFC’s first flyweight Native American Champion. The film, which provides a star look at the multi-billion-dollar UFC exploits young fighters gives a 91-minute behind-the-scenes look at their struggles.

Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice, the 20-minute Canadian short directed by Zacharias Kunuk, won the Live Action Short Award. The story about the traditional Inuit role of the shaman, centering on a grandmother and granddaughter who travel to the underworld in an effort to heal an ill young hunter, previously won Best Canadian Short Film honours at TIFF 2021 which made it eligible for submission for the Best Live Action Short category at the Academy of Awards. Had it not received the award at TIFF, imagineNATIVE’s status as the first and only Indigenous film festival in the world to be a qualifying festival for that category.

Other awards, determined by jury, consisted of film, audio, video and digital media works by Indigenous artists around the world, with $56,500 in cash and in-kind services in 18 categories.

The event, hosted by actor Crystle Lightning (Trickster), also included music by Classic Roots and Juno Award-winners Crown Lands.

Winners of the 2021 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival

• Experimental Audio Award ($2,500 cash prize from imagineNATIVE)
  The Battle Within – Janet Marie Rogers
• Narrative Audio Award ($2,500 cash prize from imagineNATIVE)
  Warrior Kids Podcast: The Boy and the Whale – Dr. Pamela Palmater
• Emerging Digital + Interactive Award ($2,500 cash prize from imagineNATIVE)
  A Drive To Top Surgery – Raven Two Feathers
• Mid-Career Digital + Interactive Award ($2,500 cash prize from imagineNATIVE)
  A Strong Fire – Wendi Sierra
• Innovation in Storytelling Award ($7,500 cash prize in recognition of Kent Monkman from Sobeys and Monkman)
  Puisi – Pilutaq Lundblad
• Documentary Short Award ($2,500 cash prize from TVO)
  Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again – Courtney Montour
• Documentary Feature Award ($5,000 cash prize in recognition of the legacy of Alanis Obomsawin from CBC )
  Warrior Spirit – Landon Dyksterhouse
• Live Action Short Award ($7,500 cash prize in recognition of founders Cynthia Lickers-Sage and Vtape, from Vtape and Jason Ryle)
  Angakusajaujuq – The Shaman’s Apprentice – Zacharias Kunuk
• Dramatic Feature Award ($7,500 cash prize from imagineNATIVE)
  Bootlegger – Caroline Monnet
• New Voice in Storytelling Award ($2,500 cash prize in honour of Jane Glassco and Ellen Monague from CJ Foundation and Indigenous Education & Engagement at Humber College)
  Adaawk – Lorna Brown
• Indigenous Language Production Award ($2,500 cash prize from Indigenous Media Initiatives)
  Matuna, la sombra del Guerrero – Rafael Roberto Mojica Gil
• August Schellenberg Award of Excellence ($2,500 cash prize from Joan Karasevich Schellenberg and ACTRA National)
  Dr. Shirley Cheechoo
• Sun Jury Award ($2,500 cash prize from the Directors Guild of Canada )
  Hiama – Matasila Freshwater
• Moon Jury Award ($2,500 cash prize from the Directors Guild of Canada)
  Run Woman Run – Zoe Hopkins
• APTN/Web Series Pitch Prize ($50,000 in cash from APTN and Bell Fund, in-kind prizing from William F. White, Picture Shop, Formosa, Streamland Media, Innovate By Day, TIFF, and Women in Film & Television – WIFT Toronto)
  The Feather News – Ryan Moccasin, Shawn Cuthand and Daniel Knight
• Harmonize Prize ($5,500 cash prize from Slaight Music and MBS Equipment Company, in-kind support from Nagamo Publishing)
  Andrew Joseph Stevens

The imagineNATIVE Audience Choice Award, Feature Film sponsored by MBS Equipment Canada, and the Audience Choice Award, Short Film sponsored by BMO, will be announced post-festival.

As the world’s largest Indigenous Festival showcasing film, video, audio, digital and interactive media constructed by Indigenous screen-content creators, the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival presents compelling and distinctive works from Canada and around the globe. Submissions reflect the diversity of Indigenous nations and illustrate the vitality and dynamism of Indigenous arts, perspectives, and cultures in contemporary media.

 This year’s imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival occurred in Toronto from Oct. 19 to 24.

Photo: Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice courtesy Isuma Distribution International