The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is presenting a retrospective exhibition on the work of legendary Abenaki documentarian, activist and singer Alanis Obomsawin (pictured) at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) PS1 in Queens, N.Y.
The exhibition, titled “Alanis Obomsawin: The Children Have to Hear Another Story,” begins March 27 and runs through to Aug. 25. A public celebration of the exhibition will be held on March 29. The exhibition is running in Montreal until Jan. 26 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
It will feature archival documents and news clips that shed light on Obomsawin’s work over the last 60 years, including selections from the 65 films she has directed, 64 of which were made with the NFB.
The exhibition was created via a partnership with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Art Museum at the University of Toronto and Vancouver Art Gallery. It was made in collaboration with the NFB and CBC/Radio-Canada and with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. It has previously been presented in Berlin, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
Crazy8s picks six short film finalists
The Crazy8s Film Society has announced the six B.C.-based finalists for its annual filmmaking challenge.
The challenge provides funding, professional mentorship and support to emerging filmmakers to aid them in producing a short film. The finalists receive $2,000 each, as well as an in-kind production package and post-production services worth up to $50,000 provided by sponsors from the local film industry and community, to help them complete their short films within an 8-day timeframe.
The finalists include Samantha Pineda’s coming-of-age horror My Mother, The Zombie, written by Loretta Seto and produced by Lila Ferradans, Seto and David Volpov; and Our Monsters, written and directed by Mia Petrovic and produced by Steven Hu, Tristan Miura and Jordan J. Rivera, which follows a pair of kids teaming up to defeat a monster in the closet.
Red Light Rebel, written and directed by Hannah Yang and produced by Ava Maria Safai, focuses on a pastor in conversation with God at a stop light. Writer-director Jackie Hoffart’s comedy The Reveal, produced by Jillian Beausoleil and Andrea Feltrin, follows a 42-year-old non-binary person struggling to reveal the news that they are transitioning.
Rounding out the shorts is Writer-director Amanda Wandler’s immortality-themed W7éyle (Moon’s Wife), produced by Rosie Johnnie-Mills and Tharyn Fabbro; and influencer spoof Where is My Head?, written and directed by Spencer Zimmerman. Pat Mooney serves as co-writer, while Siobhan Connors, Jessica To and Zimmerman are producers. Vanessa Wakely is an associate producer.
Santa Barbara Film Festival sets U.S. premieres for Canadian films
Eleven Canadian films are making their U.S. premieres at the 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which runs from Feb. 4 to 15.
Premieres include Ann Marie Fleming’s Can I Get A Witness? (AMF Productions), Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami’s documentary Incandescence (Transparent Films, NFB), Sophie Deraspe’s Canada/France copro Shepherds (micro_scope, Avenue B Productions), Amar Wala’s Shook (Film Forge, Scarborough Pictures) and Karen Chapman’s Village Keeper (SmallAxx Motion Pictures).
Playback‘s 2024 10 to Watch alum Gillian McKercher’s Lucky Star (Kino Sum Productions, Notable Content) is also making its premiere stateside after world premiering at the 2024 Calgary International Film Festival.
Axel Robbin’s short My Memory Walls (Mes murs-mémoire) is making its world premiere.
Indigenous Screen Office picks four for MIT’s Worlding
The Indigenous Screen Office, in collaboration with the Co-Creation Studio at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, has selected four Indigenous screen-based artists to participate in the Worlding program, which runs from Jan. 26 to 30 on MIT’s campus.
The four Indigenous participants are Montreal-based Inuk visual artist and filmmaker assinajaq; Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson (Wilfred Buck), based in Toronto; Peepeekissis First Nations filmmaker Dr. Tasha Hubbard (Singing Back the Buffalo), based in Edmonton; and Anishinaabe producer Jason Ryle (Endless Cookie), based in Winnipeg. The participants will be working on one project as a team.
The first-ever in-person Worlding cohort will work on an interdisciplinary field drawing on documentary, social XR, game engine technology, community-based design, land-use planning, data visualization and climate science, according to a release.
Toronto-based David Schmidt, editor at Mercury Films, is also part of the Worlding cohort.
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images