Jennifer Podemski, National Screen Institute alumna and CEO of The Shine Network Institute, has been named one of the Canadian Academy’s 2023 Special Award honourees.
Jennifer and eight other distinguished Canadians in the screen-based industry have been honoured for their outstanding contributions to the industry and society as a whole. Jennifer will receive the Academy Board of Directors’ Tribute, recognizing her extraordinary impact on the growth of the Canadian media industry.
Jennifer is an award-winning Anishinaabe / Ashkenazi actor, writer, director and producer. She is the president of Redcloud Studios Inc., where she created and produced the television series’ The Other Side and Future History; and acclaimed feature film Empire of Dirt. Recently, Jennifer co-created, co-wrote and was the showrunner for mini-series Little Bird (Crave / APTN).
In 2020, she launched The Shine Network Institute designed to empower and celebrate Indigenous women in film and television. In partnership with the National Screen Institute, they are building an online learning course titled PACT, providing non-Indigenous people in the film and television sector with cultural humility and competency training to prepare them for working with Indigenous productions and content.
The course is funded by theDepartment for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) and has a fixed purpose of improving outcomes for Indigenous people by creating safer, more culturally informed spaces and empowering non-Indigenous producers with the tools, resources and best practices that align with Indigenous values and ways of knowing.
The Canadian Academy Special Award honourees will be recognized during Canadian Screen Week, taking place in Toronto this April. Other honourees include Catherine O’Hara, Ryan Reynolds, Lisa LaFlamme and Simu Liu. Read more about the honourees.
