The Reelworld Film Festival showcases a wide variety of genres in narrative and documentary features and shorts, music videos, animation, episodic content for web and television and VR/360 works.
The festival exclusively accepts Canadian films by Black, Indigenous, Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, North African and Latin American Canadian artists. It takes place from October 20 to 25, featuring an award ceremony and up to $20K in cash prizes.
Submit your film before February 25 to waive all submission fees. Learn more about how to submit.
Alumni are seeing international success with their TELUS STORYHIVE produced projects.
OMA, produced through the Local Heroes Documentary Edition by Griffin Cork, Karen Johnson-Diamond and Melanie Bahniuk, won the best documentary short and best message award at the 2022 Top Indie Film Awards in Tokyo.
The documentary has also been accepted into Iconic Images Film Festival (Lithuania), Red Dirt Film Festival (US) and the Western Canadian International Film Festival.
Tabatha Golat and Montgomery Burt’s digital short The United Guys Network will premiere on ShortsTV this month in the US and throughout Europe. The service streams to over 40 million homes worldwide.
Apply now for the Reelworld Black Entrepreneurs Program, a training initiative for Black casting directors, agents, managers and producers in Canada.
The program provides transformational business advisory services, training, paid apprenticeship, capital investment and networking opportunities. Reelworld encourages applications from those looking to build their own businesses as casting directors, agents, managers and producers.
Over nine months, selected participants will commit to three to four months of specified training twice a week, three months of paid apprenticeship and three months working with business consultants.
Selected applicants will participate in a series of workshops focused on structuring a company for success with training in the key areas of strategic planning, finance, human resources, marketing and sales.
At the National Screen Institute, we’re thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of our community. Through Focal Point, we aim to highlight significant milestones our alumni, associate faculty and friends achieve in their projects and careers.
Julie is a film editor and post-production supervisor with over 20 years of industry experience. She got her start working in post-production on the television series The Adventures of Shirley Holmes. Captivated by the artform, Julie and her husband Bruce Little launched their own post-production company iSplice Films in the early 2000s.
Julie is driven by her desire to help others through storytelling. For many years, Julie worked as an associate faculty member for CBC New Indigenous Voices, mentoring emerging Indigenous filmmakers as they learned the essentials of the industry.
In honour of her dedication to uplifting these creators, the National Screen Institute nominated Julie to receive the Winnipeg Arts Council Making a Mark award in 2017.
When presented with the opportunity to join the National Screen Institute as program manager, Julie was ready for the challenge.
“This position has reinvigorated my drive to help my own community create their own success,” says Julie. “When this program came up, it was an absolutely natural fit.”
Julie’s first program will be the inaugural TELUS STORYHIVE Black Creators Edition, launching this February. The program is designed to support and empower the next generation of Black content creators in British Columbia and Alberta. Selected participants will receive a $20K production grant, training and mentorship from the National Screen Institute and distribution support.
Julie was thrilled to see the excitement and interest leading up to the program launch. She hopes this program not only builds a community of Black creators in western Canada, but also helps creators strengthen their voices and have their authentic stories heard.
“I love to see how participants grow into these confident creators. I’m hoping my enthusiasm rubs off,” says Julie.
Welcome to the team, Julie! We’re excited to have you lead these creators as they tell their stories and share them with the world.
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TELUS STORYHIVE is a community-powered funding program from TELUS for content creators in British Columbia and Alberta. Content creators submit their pitch ideas for a chance to win a production grant and distribution opportunities.
Once the finalists are chosen, the National Screen Institute provides mentorship and training for the selected projects and their creators.
The director of the winning film, voted by members of the TFCA, receives $100K from Rogers Communications Inc. The two runners-up each receive $5K.
Beans, written and directed by Tracey Deer (NSI Storytellers, Featuring Aboriginal Stories Program), is a coming-of-age story told from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl during the Oka Crisis. The film previously won the John Dunning Best First Feature Film Award at the Canadian Screen Awards.
Night Raiders takes place in a dystopian world where a Cree woman joins a group of vigilantes to free her daughter from the state in a military-run North America. The film was recently named to Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Canada’s Top Ten list.
The film was written and directed by Danis Goulet (NSI Drama Prize), executive produced by Lisa Meeches (NSI Indigenous training programs advisor and NSI Storytellers alumna) and Kyle Irving (NSI Global Marketing), associate produced by Eva Thomas (NSI Totally Television) and starring Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (NSI IndigiDocs program manager).
The award will be handed out at the TFCA gala in March.
