A s she takes the full helm of the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO), Kerry Swanson is focused on a growth strategy that includes building partnerships and increasing its permanent federal allocation.

Swanson recently became the ISO’s new CEO after being co-executive director alongside Jesse Wente, who departed the independent national advocacy and funding organization at the end of 2022. The first big ISO announcement under her new tenure came Jan. 5, revealing a $500,000 grant from Google.org and plans for an Immersive Incubator Program with MIT’s Co-Creation Studio, as well as an Interactive/Immersive Producer Fellowship with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

“Just as Jesse was bringing that very specific skillset in media and government and policy and advocacy, the strength that I’m bringing to the organization is in fundraising and partnerships. That is really where I have worked for the better part of my career, and so building partnerships is something that comes very naturally to me, and it’s been a very big part of our growth strategy,” Swanson tells Playback Daily.

“The latest partnerships are a really good example of that. We knew that we weren’t reaching digital creators through our existing programs; for whatever reason, the way that they were designed and the outreach that we were able to do wasn’t translating into applicants. So we are building a strategy that’s much more tailored and much more focused on the specific needs of digital, immersive, interactive storytellers. There’s a lot of exciting work taking place in this arena in Canada.”

The Google.org grant will go toward a program that will launch in the spring and include funding for podcasts, apps and and gaming as well as AR, VR, XR and digital content by Indigenous creators. A portion of the grant will also go toward strategic initiatives, including new partnership programs or commissioned projects.

The Immersive Incubator with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Open Documentary Lab will allow four Indigenous storytellers working in immersive content creation to take part in a four-day, on-site meeting with researchers and technologists at the university in Cambridge, Mass. Each project will receive $20,000 in funding for research and development. The program — supported with funding from the Canada Media Fund and Canadian Heritage — comes after the ISO’s inaugural Indigenous Digital Delegation at MIT, launched in late 2020.

The Interactive/Immersive Producer Fellowship with the NFB offers two opportunities for two fellows to receive a six-month placement in each of the NFB’s Interactive Studios in Vancouver and Montreal. One opportunity will be offered in English and one in French, with each program participant receiving a $25,000 fee plus travel stipend, if necessary, to work in-person at the studios as needed.

“Our objective is to be responsive to the needs of the community,” says Swanson. “We’re not just funding content creation, we’re also funding sector development. So we have a number of projects that we support that are training-based. We also have the Netflix program for on-set training and apprenticeships, and we’re looking at how we can expand opportunities for workforce development that we’re offering.”

Toronto-based Swanson joined the ISO in 2019 after more than 15 years of experience, in roles including founding member of Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto; associate director of granting at the Ontario Arts Council; partnerships and grants officer at Toronto Arts Council; founding director at Media Arts Network of Ontario; and executive director of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.

She was born and raised in Chapleau, northern Ontario, in a Cree/Ojibwe, Irish and French family, says the ISO website, which notes that she is a member of Michipicoten First Nation with familial ties to Chapleau Cree First Nation.

At the ISO, she has built its administrative infrastructure, partnerships, and funding framework; led its three-year strategic plan announced in August; and worked with Wente to secure $40.1 million in federal financing over three years in 2021.

“We’ve built a lot together,” Swanson says of Wente. “The last few years, we’ve been an amazing partnership, and we’ve learned a lot from each other.”

Neither Swanson’s responsibilities nor her mandate will change under her CEO title, which was decided on by the board of directors and doesn’t mark a major change in the organization, says Swanson. The board felt the new designation is more in line with industry standards and reflects her role leading strategy, finance and operations, she adds.

Swanson says she wants to continue to “build a team that works in a circular way” like it operated under the co-executive director relationship she had with Wente, which was intended to “build an organization that was not hierarchical in the way that institutions are usually built and run.”

“The decision to replace the title was really in response to the growth that the organization has experienced over the last two years specifically, and also our future anticipated growth,” she says.

As part of that anticipated growth, the ISO has a pending request to Canadian Heritage for permanent and increased federal funding of double its current budget. Its other goals include expanding on the tool-kit resources from its On-Screen Pathways and Protocols guide, and building its international market development strategy, such as bringing delegations to key festivals and markets.

“We’ve got some partnerships in the works that we’ll announce later this year, specifically tailored to workforce development,” she says. “The ISO’s mandate is really to build a robust Indigenous screen sector that is inclusive of the crew as well as the creative sides.”

Photo taken by Red Works Photography