The Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) revealed the nominees for the 2025 Indiescreen Awards on Tuesday (Aug. 12), including those prodcos vying for the honours’ inaugural award for television producers.

This year’s ceremony will recognize individual producers and production companies of feature films, TV series or short-form series that premiered or had new episodes air in 2025. The nominees and winners for each of the awards’ three categories are selected by national juries of three industry leaders each. The winners will be named in a ceremony in Toronto on Sept. 4, as part of the 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival.

First announced in June, the new TV Producer Indiescreen Award recognizes the achievements of an independent Canadian TV media production company, and comes with a $20,000 cash prize presented in partnership with the Canada Media Fund.

The five prodcos in the running for the award’s first edition are Toronto-headquartered Blue Ant Studios, for the Crave drag reality series Slaycation (coproduced with Drag Race creator World of Wonder); Winnipeg’s Eagle Vision, for the APTN factual series 7TH GEN; fellow Winnipeg-based indie Frantic Films, for the long-running CBC comedy-reality show Still Standing; Vancouver’s Lark Productions, for the CBC cop drama Allegiance; and Toronto’s New Metric Media, for the hit Crave comedy Shoresy.

Vying for this year’s Feature Film Producer Indiescreen Award — which honours the career accomplishments of a producer who has released a new feature film within the awards’ eligibility window — are Chris Ferguson, for the horror film Keeper (Oddfellows Entertainment, Phobos); Matthew Miller, for Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (Zapruder Films); Merit Jensen Carr, for the documentary Everest Dark (Merit Motion Pictures); Paula Devonshire, for the drama Blood Lines (Devonshire Productions); and Tim Doiron and James van der Woerd, for the Maritimes-set crime drama Little Lorraine (Wango Films).

The Indiescreen feature-film award is presented in partnership with Telefilm Canada and includes a $20,000 cash prize.

Rounding out the award categories is the Kevin Tierney Emerging Producer Indiescreen Award, which recognizes the potential of an up-and-coming producer in either feature films or series and comes with a $10,000 prize. Four of this year’s contenders are nominated for feature films, and one for a short-form series.

Filling the features slots are Andy Marshall, for A Tribe Called Love (Mahaica Point Media); Daniel Quinn, for Sweetness (When We Were Kids Entertainment); Leena Minifie, for The Good Canadian (Stories First Productions); and Ryan Bobkin, for Blue Heron (Nine Behind Productions, Bobkin & Sons).

Rounding out the emerging producer nominees is Lauren Corber of LoCo Motion Pictures, for the short-form series My Dead Mom.

“There’s never been a better time to celebrate talented Canadian producers and the homegrown stories they’ve created,” said Andrew Addison, SVP, strategic communications & member engagement for CMPA, in a statement. “This year’s nominees embody the creativity, grit and world-class storytelling that define the Canadian media production industry and keep audiences at home and around the world entertained.”

The honorees for the 2024 edition of the Indiescreen Awards were Martin Katz, who received the Feature Film prize for David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds; and Ngardy Conteh George, who won the Emerging Producer award for the feature doc A Mother Apart.

Pictured top row (left to right): Chris Ferguson, Matthew Miller, Merit Jensen-Carr, Paula Devonshire, Tim Doiron and James van der Woerd

Pictured bottom row (left to right): Andy Marshall, Daniel Quinn, Lauren Corber, Leena Minifie, Ryan Bobkin

Image courtesy of CMPA