Production is underway on the feature documentary Nitassinan (pictured), produced by Elodie Pollet for Terre Innue, an Indigenous production company based in Wendake in Quebec. Joséphine Bacon and Sarah Fortin are directing the film, about the Innu’s filial relationship with their ancestral homeland of Nitassinan in Quebec.

Nitassinan is being made with the financial participation of: Telefilm Canada; SODEC; the Rogers Group of Funds; Fonds MELS; the Film and Television Tax Credit program (SODEC), the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, the Conseil des Innus de Pessamit, ITUM (Conseil des Innus – Uashat mak Mani-utenam), the Tshakapesh Institute, Radio CKAU-FM, Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation, Boîte Rouge VIF and the Shaputuan Museum.

Nitassinan will be distributed in Canada by K-Films Amérique and released in 2023.

Gay Mean Girls goes for season two

Principal photography has begun in Toronto on the sophomore season of the 8 x 10-minute web series Gay Mean Girls. Built on the 2015 short film of the same name, the second season stars Jenna Phoa as a student journalist who becomes entangled with members of an arts space for queer racialized youth.

Heyishi Zhang is showrunner and director for season two, with Maddy Falle of Toronto-based Obvious Allegory serving as a producer and Hayley Wong as co-producer. Gearshift Films’ Borga Dorter and Jordan Barker are executive producers on the series, which is set to be released online through KindaTV.

Funding for the sophomore season is provided by Ontario Creates, the Bell Fund, the Canada Media Fund and Shaw Rocket Fund. The debut season was subsidized by the Bell Fund and Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program in 2018 and premiered as part of the TIFF Next Wave Festival.

VFS offers another round of gaming scholarships

The Vancouver Film School has renewed the Women in Game Design Scholarship scholarship fund in partnership with The Coalition, Blackbird Interactive and A Thinking Ape. The initiative, valued at over $150,000, includes mentorship and a paid internship for the top three applicants.

Women and non-binary persons looking to enter the game industry can apply for the fund, which will award three full tuition scholarships as well as three $10,000 and five $5,000 partial-tuition scholarships.

Mordu appoints TikTok content specialist

Radio-Canada has hired a popular TikTok content creator to help with original content on Mordu, its French-language cooking and food account on the platform. Michelle Furtado of Quebec has been appointed a TikTok content specialist for Mordu and will collaborate with well-known personalities and chefs, including Geneviève O’Gleman, Bob le Chef and Allison Van Rassel.

The content will first be designed for TikTok, but reused on other platforms such as Instagram and YouTube as well as on mordu.ca, with the aim of appealing to the 18-to-34-year-old demographic.

NSI appoints senior programs head

The National Screen Institute (NSI) has promoted Ursula Lawson to senior programs manager. Lawson has been with the charitable, not-for-profit organization since 2004 and co-developed the documentary development and production program NSI IndigiDocs in 2012.

She’ll continue her work as manager for the NSI’s EAVE On Demand Access Program while also providing support, management and training to program managers. Lawson will also work alongside CEO Joy Loewen and director of operations Liz Hover to develop new programs, among other duties.

Story Money Impact announces The Pod

Vancouver-based charity Story Money Impact has announced its latest cohort of Impact Producers (The Pod). They are: documentary filmmaker and Hot Docs programmer Mariam Zaidi; producer and documentarian Deydra Baptiste; documentary filmmaker Eva Anandi Brownstein; community organizer and writer Stacey Gomez; emerging filmmaker and writer Clare Covechok; and grassroots community builder and anti-racism facilitator Shayan de Luna-Bueno.

The SMI Pod Program is a part-time paid program designed to develop the skills of an impact team for campaigns for documentary film. Story Money Impact has also expanded its board to include business executive and lawyer Mary Barroll; content producer Sholeh Fabbri; performer and storyteller Cory Generoux; entertainment industry accountant Vishal Hiralal; and producer and the Canadian Media Producers Association’s director of BC industrial relations, Marsha Newbery.

 With files from Nick Krewen