Patrick Shannon’s Indigenous basketball documentary Saints and Warriors (pictured) will have its world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.

The film follows the Skidegate Saints basketball team in Haida Gwaii, B.C., their dominance of the All Native Basketball Tournament and how the sport became an obsession for the Haida people.  It is directed by Shannon and written by him, Desmond Collinson and Gaagwiis Jason Alsop.

Shannon, also known as Nang Ḵ’uulas, hails from Skidegate and is an Indigenous-Haida filmmaker, Saints and Warriors represents his first feature. The film is produced by Michael Tanko Grand for Grand Scheme Productions and Shannon’s InnoNative. It is a co-venture with First Take Entertainment and Uninterrupted Canada and produced in association with Crave, the Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada, Creative BC, CrossCurrents Doc Fund and Rogers Group of Funds. Game Theory Films is its Canadian distributor.

The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival will also feature the U.S. premieres of feature documentaries such as Christopher Auchter’s The Stand (NFB) and Jen Muranetz’ Fairy Creek (Understory Films).

The festival runs from Feb. 14 to 23.

Four showrunners selected for PSP’s Develop BC program

Four showrunners have been selected for a new Pacific Screenwriting Program (PSP) pilot initiative, Develop BC.

Launched in 2024 with funds from Creative BC, the program has the goal of supporting B.C. showrunners and emerging writers while stimulating the development of B.C.-owned IP.

The selected showrunners are Brad Wright (Travelers), Jennica Harper (Run the Burbs), Ken Craw (Heartland) and Sonja Bennett (Family Law). Each of them will lead a week’s development room staffed with emerging writers.

The emerging writers are Christopher Nash, Helene Taylor, Jackson Chow, Jordan Hall, Ken Kabatoff, Kim Senklip Harvey, Norman Yi Li and Tammy Tsang.

In a release, PSP said that the pilot project allows it to explore the benefits of this program and learn from the experience of small-scale execution, prior to any larger roll-out.

Manitoba Métis artist chosen as Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita fellow

Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, Man.-born filmmaker Rhayne Vermette was named as the 2025 Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita fellow. Named after the late Māori filmmaker Merata Mita, the fellowship is granted annually to an Indigenous woman-identified artist aiming to make a feature film.

Vermette’s debut feature Ste. Anne (Exovedate Productions) won the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. The film follows a tense reunion between mother and daughter.

Vermette, a self-taught Métis artist, has had presentations at the Walker Art Center, New York Film Festival, Jeonju International Film Festival and Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective.

Blue Rodeo takes top prize in Canadian box office

Cream Productions’ Blue Rodeo: Lost Together attracted a strong audience in its two-day theatrical run.

The documentary grossed $69,922 via a national Cineplex run and two sold-out screenings at Toronto’s Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. Including its December 2024 world premiere at the Whistler Film Festival and its screening at the Salt Springs Film Festival, the doc has grossed $76,364.

Directed by Dale Heslip, the film is distributed by Blue Ice Docs and supported by Ontario Creates, the Rogers Documentary Fund and tax credits.

A spokesperson for Blue Ice told Playback Daily the top box office performances were from Cineplex locations in Ontario cities Burlington and Barrie, as well as Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton.

With files from Nicholas Sokic.

Image courtesy of Ball is Life Entertainment