TORONTO — The Banff World Media Festival today announced a new initiative, the International Indigenous Screen Industry Summit, which will take place Monday, June 21 via the festival’s virtual conference platform.
Timed to coincide with Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day, the Indigenous summit aims to facilitate conversation, and highlight and empower Indigenous media industry professionals from around the world. The day-long virtual event will include panels, roundtable discussions, curated networking events and two sessions with ground-breaking Indigenous creators.
The program was created with the guidance of a dedicated advisory board including: Monika Ille, CEO of APTN; Melanie Hadley, program director at WarnerMedia; Kerry Swanson, associate director of the Indigenous Screen Office; Jesse Wente, director of the Indigenous Screen Office; Jason Ryle, producer, curator, project manager and consultant; Naomi Johnson, executive director of imagineNATIVE; and Adriana Chartrand, institute manager of imagineNATIVE.
Details of three sessions have been announced.
At 1 p.m. ET on June 21, “A cultural conversation: the future of Indigenous broadcasting and streaming” will feature Lucy Tulugarjuk, executive director of Nunavut Independent Television Network and managing director of Uvagut TV; Kim Larsen, head of television at KNR Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation; Margaret Mary Murray, head of Gaelic services at BBC; Alan Esslemont, director general of TG4 and chair of the Celtic Media Festival; Maramena Roderick, director of content at Māori TV; and Tanya Denning-Orman, director of Indigenous content at SBS in Australia.
At 4 p.m. ET, “Nations to Nations: Canadian Indigenous stories on a global stage” will feature Loretta Todd, director of Monkey Beach; Jeff Barnaby, filmmaker and director of Blood Quantum; JJ Neepin, director, producer and writer of Taken; and Shane Belcourt, director and producer of Amplify.
And at 5 p.m. ET, “Master Class: Reservation Dogs” will feature a conversation with the stars and creative team of FX’s Reservation Dogs, including co-creator and executive producer Sterlin Harjo, writer Tazbah Chavez and actor D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Bear) and actress Devery Jacobs (Elora Danan).
For more information on the Banff World Media Festival virtual conference, taking place from June 14 to July 16, please click here. The full agenda for the 2021 virtual festival is available here.
