Filmmaker and producer Kelvin Redvers is merging fresh creative perspectives with old-school wisdom with the launch of his B.C.-based shingle IndigiFilm.

Unveiled during the Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) earlier this month, Redvers – a Dene filmmaker from the Deninu Kųę́ First Nation First Nation in the Northwest Territories – tells Playback Daily that IndigiFilm is focused on delivering premium scripted and unscripted Canadian content that can sell globally.

To help achieve that, Redvers has partnered with unscripted veterans, including Mark Miller, the former president of Thunderbird Entertainment and co-founder of Great Pacific Media, and Neil Thomas, co-creator of doc series Highway Thru Hell. Thomas leads development at IndigiFilm, with Miller serving as an advisor on the creation and financing of projects.

Redvers says he met Miller more than a decade ago while working as a journalist at CTV’s Indigenous-focused current affairs series First Story and Miller was producing content for Discovery Canada. The two eventually worked together when Redvers pitched the concept that would become the CBC series High Arctic Haulers.

“[IndigiFilm has] both that emerging, energetic energy, but also the seasoned veterans that can keep us on track,” he says, calling it a “priceless” solid foundation for a fledgling prodco.

Redvers says the company’s content slate casts a wide net, covering film and television in scripted and unscripted genres. IndigiFilm’s first project is the feature film Cold Road, written and directed by Redvers, a thriller about an Indigenous woman making a harrowing trip to see her dying mother in a remote First Nations village.

The film was produced in association with Bell Media streamer Crave, which Redvers says speaks to the “high level of quality” the company plans to deliver, with a focus on reaching mainstream audiences with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous content.

“We want IndigiFilm to be a place where the broadcasters and the distributors can go to because they know that [we] have quality [content], but then also for emerging creatives to come to us and feel comfortable that we’re going to take their ideas and engage with them in an authentic way,” he says.

The company also aims to take advantage of the hyperlocal content interest in the current global market, using their existing connections with Canadian broadcasters to attract international partners to complete financing on premium projects.

Right now the company is working on titles that reimagine familiar concepts with an Indigenous perspective, with a thriller currently in development about a rooftop hostage situation.

“It’s been designed to feel like a big-budget project, but that takes place in limited locations, so it keeps it from having an overinflated budget,” he says, calling it an “elevated thriller” that surprises audiences with a fresh twist or take on the genre.

Redvers — who made headlines at the Cannes Film Festival last month while wearing traditional First Nations attire on the red carpet — attended BANFF to network face-to-face with potential buyers and to meet up-and-coming talent in attendance as part of the first in-person Indigenous Screen Summit. The producer says he was excited at the high level of visibility of Indigenous creatives at the four-day festival, where there was an “unbelievable” amount of talent in attendance.

“Having been in media for 15 years, it feels different this year,” he says, adding that he was excited by the stories heard at the Indigenous Screen Summit Pitch Forum, which kicked off the festival.