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Female Filmmakers Dominate at the
14th Annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival

Where Artists are Heroes!

October 16-20, 2013

The 14th annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, running October 16 ? 20, 2013, returns to Toronto this fall to host the world’s largest festival of Indigenous film and media arts. The Festival has announced 101 films, including documentaries, features and shorts, and proudly presents a program dominated by female filmmakers with more than half of the screening works at the Festival made by women, a noteworthy representation.

Meanwhile, with TIFF premieres of both Jennifer Podemski’s indie drama Empire of Dirt and Jeff Barnaby’s debut feature film, Rhymes for Young Ghouls, the Native-Canadian presence at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival did not go unnoticed. With both of these films, and 99 more, screening at this year’s imagineNATIVE festival, Aboriginal art will idle no more with increased presence at the world’s most foremost festivals.

“When the Toronto International Film Festival decides, as it decided this year, to premiere not one, not two, but three full-length movies about Canada’s aboriginal peoples, it fairly screams to media types, ‘Attention must be paid!’” ? James Adams, The Globe and Mail

imagineNATIVE previously announced that Mystery Road, directed by Ivan Sen which also appeared at TIFF ? will open the Film Festival at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Wednesday, October 16. Mystery Road tells the story of Indigenous cowboy-detective Jay Swan as he returns to his outback hometown to solve the murder of a teenage girl.

The closing night film, Uvanga, co-directed by Madeline Piujuq Ivalu and Marie-Hélène Cousineau, will screen on Sunday, October 20 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Uvanga is the story of a young man discovering the land and culture of a father he never knew in Igloolik, Nunavut.

Beyond Canada, the Festival presents Indigenous films and media arts from around the world, while also utilizing its annual platform to shine a spotlight on an Indigenous nation outside of Canada. This year, the Festival will feature works from the Māori nation of New Zealand with groundbreaking feature films, Mana Waka and The Neglected Miracle, and comedy short film Fresh Meat, plus the Festival’s Radio Works program, all to be presented at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

The 2013 Festival will also see the launch of the indigiTALKS Video Essay Project, where female artists continue to prevail. Taking place at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, the inaugural indigiTALKS challenges three Ontario-based Indigenous artists, Wanda Nanibush, Rachelle Dickenson and Ariel Smith, to each produce a 10-minute video essay and give a public presentation on a new thesis of artistic discourse in Indigenous-created film and video work.

The 14th Annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival kicks off at 2pm on Wednesday, October 16 with a Welcome Gathering at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, co-presented by Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training and TD Bank Group. FREE and open to the public, this reception features traditional Indigenous prayers and performances, craft vendors, food, and a welcome address from imagineNATIVE and its international delegates in a casual, family-friendly atmosphere.

Visit www.imagineNATIVE.org for the full festival line-up.