Playback is proud to present the 2024 cohort for our annual 10 to Watch. This year’s group of Canadian screen industry talents were selected from more than 250 submissions. We are rolling out profiles on each individual this month.
Anishinaabekwe filmmaker Dinae Robinson has accrued a wide variety of film and TV projects in the last decade, including creating Snapchat’s first original Canadian series in 2022 and becoming a showrunner on a true crime docuseries.
“One of the main reasons why I wanted to get into the industry was to share our stories,” Robinson tells Playback Daily. “Through a lot of the content we create, it’s helping Indigenous people see themselves on screen and in positive ways, rather than traditional, stereotypical ways that we’ve historically been portrayed.”
Robinson originally entered the film and TV world to become an actor. When Winnipeg-based Eagle Vision co-owner Rebecca Gibson taught her an acting class in 2008, she told Robinson that she was not just a phenomenal actor, but also a writer.
Fast forward to 2015, Gibson was the executive producer for Taken, an APTN and CBC true crime documentary series about missing and murdered Indigenous women.
“The first chance I got, I asked, ‘Can we hire Dinae Robinson?'” says Gibson.
Robinson didn’t have the experience to come on as a writer for Taken, so Gibson instead hired her to transcribe the interviews with the show’s subjects, ranging from family members who had lost loved ones to community workers advocating for Indigenous people.
Robinson’s work ethic not only impressed Gibson, but Lisa Meeches, one of her partners at Eagle Vision. Meeches was already a fan of Robinson’s after accepting her into the National Screen Institute’s (NSI) CBC New Indigenous Voices program, which she used to manage (and now sponsors).
To this day, Meeches remembers the “poetic” reference letter that Gibson wrote about Robinson for the NSI program.
“I immediately fell in love with who she was,” says Meeches. “She was so coachable.”
Meeches also worked closely with Robinson during her placement for the NSI program, which was at Eagle Vision, and recalls thinking: “This girl can really write!”
Eventually, Meeches and Gibson offered Robinson a writing job on Taken. Robinson remembers feeling terrified when she got the offer. “To being successful in the industry, you have to adapt to lots of things, and be open to learning and knowing that you’re not going to know everything when you get in there,” she says.
But it wasn’t just Robinson’s talents that Meeches and Robinson loved, it was also her commitment to her Indigenous heritage. Eagle Vision is founded on the Indigenous people’s Seven Sacred Laws, including respect, love and courage. Meeches says she appreciated that Robinson came into their company already knowing these Laws and embodying them in her life.
Robinson grew up in Winnipeg, but often returned to her community of Swan Lake First Nation in Manitoba. Everything Robinson works on now has a connection back to her Indigeneity. She wrote and directed for the History Channel feature documentary True Story about the oral history of Indigenous peoples, and was co-showrunner, writer and director on Reclaim(ed), Snapchat’s first Canadian original series, which explores how young people are embracing their Indigenous culture.
Robinson even includes her family as background actors. “My son has been in every one of my projects, even my first independent short,” she says.
Meeches points out that this isn’t just Robinson including her family in her work, but creating her own “star system” that she can tap into as she becomes a more prominent filmmaker.
This is especially true in anticipation for her directorial feature debut. Robinson is currently in the early stages of creating Have You Heard?, a horror movie anthology of three urban Indigenous legends, all woven together through the Indigenous women in them. The first story is a sexy, gory tale about the supernatural; the second, an experimental, dreamy sequence about addiction; the third, a campy revenge story.
“Even though it’s a horror movie, we don’t actively see any Indigenous person being harmed in it, which I’m very proud about,” says Robinson.
Telefilm Canada has already provided financing for the film, and Robinson brought the project to the Ontario Creates Film Financing Forum in September and as part of the Canadian delegation of FilmFest München’s CineCoPro Conference in July.
Eagle Vision is also involved in the film. “The message behind it is something that I’ve never seen before,” says Gibson. “I can’t believe how seamlessly she can integrate such powerful messages into her work, that are also so creative and engaging and fun.”
This isn’t the first time that Robinson has taken a serious topic and made it into something Gibson calls “epic.” In the making of True Story, instead of choosing to show the facts of the horrific violence of the Indian Act and its effects, Robinson chose to use humour and Indigenous folklore to explore it. Plus, she did it within six months and on a tight budget.
The documentary was nominated for a Rockie Award at the Banff World Media Festival in 2023. Robinson then told the History Channel she wanted to make a part two.
“And they said, ‘Yes, ma’am,'” says Gibson. “She’s a visionary … It’s not many people who have that magical gift.”
Image courtesy of Dinae Robinson