Tag: autochtones

Writer/Director/Producer Jessie Anthony is a proud Haudenosaunee woman from the Onondaga Nation, Beaver clan, born and raised on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario Canada. Jessie is a graduate of the Indigenous Independent Filmmaking Program and Bachelor of Motion Picture Arts Degree from Capilano University. Jessie is a Telefilm Talent to Watch winner for her first feature film titled “Brother, I Cry” which won the 2020 BC Emerging Filmmakers Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival and picked up the Audience Choice Award in the 2020 imagiNative Film Festival. She is currently in post-production with the series QUERENCIA which won the imagineNATIVE Pitch Competition, gaining a broadcast deal with APTN/The Bell Fund.

Jessie has produced shorts funded by Telus Optik and BravoFact as well as many music videos. She was the first Assistant Director on The Edge of the Knife, co-directed by Helen Haig-Brown and Haida Artist, Gwaai Edenshaw. Jessie was a finalist at the MPPIA short film award competition, where she received an honourable mention. She directed the documentary Through My Needle, which follows a Mohawk designer and her family; exploring culture and clan through the beading and design of indigenous regalia. Jessie worked on the Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce (NBC Universal), River of Silence (Telefilm), Going For Broke (Telus/Red Castle Films), Man in the High Castle (Amazon) and La Quinceanera (Lucha Gore -Time Warner) and many more. When Jessie isn’t working within film you can find her on her Facebook live feeds helping indigenous communities with healing and spiritual guidance.

Filmmaker and editor, Sophie Farkas Bolla was born in Montréal and started being involved in both visual and performing arts at a very young age. She attended Concordia University in Film Production and graduated in 2006. Soon after, she began working as a film editor while continuing to develop her own films.  In 2009, she directed CHRONICLES BY THE OTHER, which enjoyed a good festival run. In 2012, she completed her second short entitled, ISTVAN AND THE FUR TROUT, a cinematic tale about growing up and disillusionment. WHEN MONSTERS WERE REAL (2015) is her third film and explores our fears from childhood. She is also writing her first features, NAGYPAPA, a dramatic comedy evolving in a charming, yet particular family and JULES AU PAYS D’ASHA a fable set in 1940’s Québec where imagination and reality collide. This film is in pre-production and will be shot this summer.

When Sophie is not working on her own projects, she is also an editor and in 2018 she was nominated for an Iris awards for best documentary editing for P.S. JERUSALEM by Danae Elon (official selection TIFF and Berlin). Among the many fiction and documentary films that Sophie has edited, there is the award-winning ANTOINE (2009) by Laura Bari (Iris nomination), ANGRY INUK (2016) by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (Audience award at HotDocs), MY DAUGHTER IS NOT FOR SALE (2017) by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, ROADS IN FEBRUARY (2018) by Katherine Jerkovic (Best Canadian First Film Award, TIFF 2018) and most recently BEANS (2020) by Tracey Deer (TIFF, Berlinale) and THE GIG IS UP! (2021) by Shannon Walsh. Finally, Sophie was also a Filmmaker-Trainer for Wapikoni Mobile and accompanied many young people from Tobique First Nation in their creative journey, including Oqim Nicholas with his film AMONG THE FOREST (2018) (Award for best pan-Canadian student film at the FNC).