Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival have partnered for the eighth annual $50K Digital Project Prize and are calling on hip hop, rap and spoken word artists, poets, singers, audio storytellers and podcasters to apply to create a digital or interactive experiment.

Your project can be anything: a new kind of music video, a live performance or even an application for your phone.

Whatever you come up with, it will be based on the words and voices of Indigenous artists. You will bring your idea to life with a team of creatives assembled with NFB and imagineNATIVE. The completed project will be exhibited and performed at the imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in 2020 and distributed online.

Get more information.

The post NFB and imagineNATIVE launch call for Indigenous voice artists appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).

The second season of Take the Dive, a food series exploring delicious Winnipeg hidden gems produced by Orlando Braun’s (NSI Business For Producers) company Prairie Boy Productions, is now available to stream on Bell MTS Fibe TV.

The series features downtown dweller Jorge Requena Ramos as he takes his suburban friend Joanna Braun on an ‘insider’s list’ tour of the coolest dives and hidden gems in Manitoba. Pushing her to step out of her comfort zone and discover amazing restaurants, diners and cafes to rekindle her love for her province through food.

Previously the series was nominated for a 2019 Golden Sheaf Award from Yorkton Film Festival in the lifestyle and reality category.

The post Second season of Orlando Braun’s Take the Dive series streaming on Bell MTS appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).

A blocked artist seeks creative inspiration.

Creative team

Writer/director: Mandy May Cheetham
Producers: Mandy May Cheetham, Luwam Tekeste, Kathleen Walsh

Filmmaker’s statement

This film was written while under a deadline for my show MUTHA, which appeared as part of Rachel Dratch’s Late Night Snack on truTV. It was my first big show and I was very excited about how I was going to not mess it up when I, for the first time in my career, stumbled upon the phenomenon known as writer’s block. I finally had the dream, yes, the green light I had been fighting for for two years and suddenly I couldn’t make decisions.

Dale Sood and I planned to create a short to follow up our first short, The Right Man, which found some love on Funny or Die so I felt really special about that and thought this one needed to be a masterpiece too – so obviously I had no script ideas good enough for this ‘pressure’ either.

On the streetcar on the way to our location scout for the short film we would be shooting – which was so far about nothing – I decided I needed to just write about my block in order to feed the angry little monster so she would get out of the way and allow me to write something again someday. I did, and you just watched it.

And, in the grand tradition of Dale and Mandy made movies, we came up with the joke at the end when we filmed it. Proving that if you are patient, inspiration is everywhere.

About Mandy May Cheetham

Mandy May Cheetham makes her directorial debut with The Artistic Process. A short film she created (while blocked) and writing MUTHA, a sketch series commissioned by truTV for Rachel Dratch’s Late Night Snack and produced by Abso Lutely Productions (Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim).

As a writer and actress she has collaborated on many improvised short films and web series, and hosted a show for Bell TV in Canada called Mandy Mayhem’s Rapping with Actors which was inspired by her rap alter-ego Mandy Mayhem.

The post The Artistic Process appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).

In the wake of yet another disappearance at work, Marcus arrives at Jaime’s loft for a date they’ve both been working up to for months. A passionate kiss quickly unveils ulterior motives as their true selves come into the light.

A physiological thriller exploring the power of skin and what happens when too much trauma reaches boiling point.

Creative team

Writers: Mandi Nicholson, Angela Besharah
Director: Angela Besharah
Producers: Jordan T Gray, Mandi Nicholson, Angela Besharah

Filmmaker’s statement

Rive was created by Mandi Nicholson and I with the intent to bring awareness to the stereotypes people of colour tend to portray in film. We wanted to create something that would highlight Dalmar Abuzeid’s beautiful heart and sensitivities while perhaps leading our audience down another path.

In tackling perceptions of the colour of someone’s skin, we found ourselves also examining white privilege and what someone who looks like Mandi could indeed get away with.

About Angela Besharah

Angela is an award-winning director, actor and producer. Over the last 15 years she has directed 11 plays (seven original works) to rave reviews, broken box office records, sold out and extended runs. She’s currently in rehearsals for the Toronto premiere of Dry Powder by Sarah Burgess.

As a film director, her third narrative short, With You Always, just had its world premiere at The Canadian Film Festival and has its US debut in California next month. Her previous film, Rive, won best foreign drama in Atlanta and had its Canadian premiere at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her first film creation, Now & Then, was featured in The New York Times. She’s also directed documentary shorts for TVO’s Get Involved!

As an actor, Angela has worked with acclaimed directors in over 40 productions for film, television, theatre and voice. These include The Kennedys (History Channel), Lost Girl, Bitten (Syfy), Copper (BBC America), Salvation (CBS), Condor (DirecTV) and most recently In The Dark (CW).

She currently runs on-camera and scene study classes through the Lighthouse Acting Studio, as well as coaching top talent privately through Inside Light Studio.

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