Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

The Decolonizing Lens is a monthly series featuring the work and words of Indigenous filmmakers from Winnipeg and beyond. This month’s event is a film screening.

Kids of all ages are invited to this program of kid-tested and approved short films, including Crash Site from Sonya Ballantyne (NSI New Voices, NSI Aboriginal Documentary), at the Winnipeg Film Group’s Cinematheque.

The event happens December 10 at at 1 p.m. and admission is free.

The Decolonizing Lens is supported by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of Manitoba.

TIFF has announced its 2017 Top Ten Film Festival lineup and included are three films from NSI grads.

• Feature film Werewolf from director/producer Ashley McKenzie and producer Nelson MacDonald (both NSI Drama Prize).

• Feature film Hello Destroyer from exec producer Trish Dolman (NSI Features First)

• Short film Mariner from exec producer Jordana Aarons (NSI Totally Television, NSI Features First)

The fest takes place January 13 to 26, 2017.

From left: Kyle Rideout, NSI CEO John Gill, NSI programming director Brendon Sawatzky, Josh Epstein

The National Screen Institute congratulates Josh Epstein and Kyle Rideout whose NSI Features First project Public Schooled is currently in production in Vancouver.

NSI’s John Gill and Brendon Sawatzky, pictured above with Josh and Kyle, recently visited the set and got to wear some fancy slippers.

Public Schooled stars Judy Greer as the mother of socially awkward Liam, a boy who has been home-schooled his whole life. When Liam falls in love with a popular one-legged girl, he abandons his mother’s suffocating love and enrolls in public school, entering a world of sex, drugs and social studies.

Josh and Kyle co-wrote the script. Kyle is directing and Josh is producing. Public Schooled was developed in 2014 through NSI Features First.

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NSI Features First 2014 was funded by Presenting Sponsor Telefilm Canada; Program Partners The Brian Linehan Charitable Foundation and Shaw Media; Supporting Sponsor Entertainment One; Actors Support Sponsor The Brian Linehan Charitable Foundation; Bursary Sponsor ZoomerMedia; Industry Partner The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (ACCT) and Provincial Sponsor Alberta Film.

Congratulations to Farpoint Films‘ John Barnard, Chris Charney and Kyle Bornais (all NSI Features First) whose feature Menorca premieres at AMC theatres in the US today.

Menorca is distributed in the United States by A71 Entertainment.

The film, shot on location in Canada and Spain, centres on hedonistic soccer mom Claire (Tammy Gillis) who embarks on a strange journey of self-discovery and seeks to reconnect with her estranged son by returning his pet rock to the island of Menorca, Spain.