2022 SIFA JURY
Sera-Lys McArthur is a screen and stage actor, producer, model and a proud member of the Siyo Nide’ Nakoda Oyade (Pheasant Rump Nakota Nation), a Treaty 4 signatory. Sera-Lys starred in season 3 of the series Burden of Truth and has recurring roles on Arctic Air, Pretty Hard Cases and season 3 of Diggstown. She had an unforgettable guest appearance on Outlander as Mohawk healer ‘Johiehon’, and appeared alongside Cobie Smulders in Netflix's Friends From College. She has lead roles in the independent feature films Don’t Say Its Name, Robbery, and the recently-premiered Broken Angel, making waves on the film festival circuit. She played a key supporting role in the novel-to-film adaptation of Monkey Beach, and voices the new operator “Thunderbird” in the Ubisoft video game Rainbow Six: Siege. Sera-Lys is the lead producer and star of an award-winning short film called kwêskosîw (She Whistles), which showcased at many prestigious festivals and is currently available to stream across Canada on Crave. She won two non-gender-specific acting awards from the Blood In the Snow Film Festival in Toronto for her lead acting performances in both a short, kwêskosîw (SheWhistles), and a feature, Don’t Say Its Name.
Janine Windolph (Atikamekw/Woodland Cree) is the Acting Director of Indigenous Arts at Banff Centre Arts and Creativity. Windolph is known as an Interdisciplinary artist: filmmaker educator, curator, and storyteller. She has a Master of Fine Arts Interdisciplinary in Indigenous Fine Arts and Media Production.
Don Young arrived in Canada in 1966 from Glasgow, Scotland. His family is from a long line of social rabble-rousers and working class poets. Graduating from the University of Alberta in 1978 he freelanced for the Calgary Albertan and the Edmonton Journal newspapers before finding a place with CBC Radio as a Senior Producer on the CBC show Morningside. Over the course of his career, he has been fortunate to win 3 Geminis, a Canadian Screen Award, an ACTRA Award, a Yorkton Film Festival Golden Sheaf, and a US Cable Emmy. During the long COVID winter Don wrote a feature length screenplay (“Justice at Medicine Hat”) plus a Virtual Reality human rights documentary on the trial of Adoph Eichmann. His on-going 'passion project' is a stage play he is writing about his personal journey through an episode of depression and isolation. Don has taught widely at Journalism schools and colleges across Canada and is (or so he thinks) a reasonably entertaining 'after dinner speaker'. He presently lives in Regina.
ADJUDICATION
SIFA is adjudicated by a jury panel of three professional independent Saskatchewan filmmakers
• This is a competitive process juried by a panel of three professional independent filmmakers
• Films selected for the SIFA Screening will be assessed under the context of the Filmpool’s mandate.
• The Filmpool retains the right to deem certain content inappropriate for a general audience.
• The final decision regarding interpretation of the eligibility of any production for consideration for the SIFAs will be the responsibility of the Filmpool and the 2019 SIFA Committee.
The 2022 jury considers a diverse selection of drama, comedy, experimental, animation, and documentary according to four criteria: technical, creative, vision, and merit.
Technical merit consists of a film's technical quality of image and sound, such as focus, exposure, camera control, and sound clarity and mix.
Creative merit pertains to how a film makes creative use of film language, including camera movement and angles, editing, frame composition, lighting and sound.
Filmmaker vision consists of how effectively and uniquely a film's theme, message and/or point of view is communicated through a film.
Overall Merit considers the overall effectiveness of a film, how well the film accomplishes what it attempts to do.
awards
Best Short Film
Sponsored by SMPIA
To qualify for this category, films must not exceed 50 minutes. A web-series with a total running time of under 50 minutes is eligible in this category. The winner of this award will receive a $250 cash prize, along with their name on the Best Short Film SIFA trophy, and a trophy.
Best Long Form
Sponsored by Creative Saskatchewan
To qualify for this category, films must be a minimum of 45 minutes. The winner of this award will receive a $250 cash prize, along with their name on the Best Long Form SIFA trophy, and a trophy.
Best music video
Sponsored by SaskMusic
To qualify for this category, the director must retain creative control. Submissions must include proof that the musician(s) have permitted the submission of the music video, and that the director had creative control over the music video. The winner of this award will receive a $250 cash prize, and a trophy.
Best PERFORMANCE
Sponsored by Iron Door Productions
This award will be given to an outstanding performance by on-screen talent in a submitted film. The winner of this award will receive a $100 cash prize, and a trophy.
Best student film
Sponsored by The University of Regina Department of Film
To qualify for this category, the filmmaker must be enrolled in secondary or post-secondary schooling, or have created their film within the last two years while being enrolled in secondary or post-secondary schooling.
The winner of this award will receive a $250 cash prize, and a trophy.
Best Technical Achievement
Sponsored by Java Post Production
This award will recognize achievement in the technical aspects of a nominated film, including cinematography, sound design, and post-production. The winner of this award will receive a $100 cash prize, and a trophy.
audience choice
Sponsored by Lampblack Studios
Voting will happen on the night of the awards, in person and online. The winner of this award will receive a $100 cash prize, and a trophy.
David Geiss grew up in the 80s and 90s on a Saskatchewan homestead in Treaty 4 territory, and now lives on Vancouver Island on the traditional and unceded territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt, and W̱SÁNEĆ Nations. He holds a Screenwriting MFA from the University of Victoria and a Film & Video Production BFA from the University of Regina. His films and documentaries have been seen around the world: Queen City won the Best Documentary Award at the Canadian National Youth Film Festival in Ottawa, and his followup docudrama Stubblejumper appeared at several festivals including Inside Out in Toronto; both were broadcast on OutTV. He received NFB support for the short film Basin which screened at dozens of festivals including Hot Docs and WNDX. Recently he directed the Back to the Land episode of OutTV’s Leo Award nominated documentary series OutSpoken, and the canine companion adventure film Bark to the Land starring Data the Boston Terrier. David has taught Screenwriting at UVic, served as a programmer for Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival and the National Student Film Festival (now the Living Skies Student Film Festival), and spent nearly a decade as Festival Coordinator for Queer City Cinema Film Festival and Performatorium Performing Arts Festival. He is currently the Executive Director of CineVic Society of Independent Filmmakers, and has also worked with several non-profit organizations including Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative, U of R Pride Centre (formerly GBLUR), Victoria Car Share Cooperative, and Modo Car Share Cooperative.
2021 SIFA JURY
Chehala Leonard is a producer with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) North West Studio based in Edmonton. She is a member of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation, and founded ᐊᐢᑭᕀ Askîy Media Inc., an Indigenous-owned production company that focuses on sharing land-based stories through film and media. She has worked as a producer on a 13-part Canadian Rockies Series on WILD TV and co-produced the pilot When Spirit Comes Through and the documentary Living a Legacy for APTN. Chehala graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Native Studies from the University of Alberta, where she also spent one year studying abroad at the University of Queensland in Australia. She has also worked as a journalist for IndigiNews.
Larry J. Bauman is an award winning Saskatchewan filmmaker whose drama, documentary and performing arts productions have screened in countries around the world. He has directed films ranging from micro-budget music and dance works to internationally released feature-length dramas plus experimental works including a twohour multi-screen video environment for an avant-garde theatre production in Barcelona. He has acted as adjudicator, speaker and workshop presenter at several regional and national festival events and has instructed media production courses at the University of Regina and University of Saskatchewan.
2020 SIFA JURY
Elian Mikkola is a moving image artist based between Montreal and Regina. Their work has been showcased in several film festivals in Canada and internationally, including International Film Festival Rotterdam and TIFF's Canada's Top Ten Film Festival. Mikkola completed their MFA in 2019 at the University of Regina. They are a part of La Lumière Collective and an active board member of Queer City Cinema.
Janine Windolph, Atikamekw/Woodland Cree, is a Saskatchewan-based filmmaker working at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity as Associate Director to Indigenous Arts. Janine’s been making films since 2007 including roles as producer, director, narrator, writer and/or editor. Janine is a graduate of the University of Regina with a Master of Fine Arts Interdisciplinary in Media Production and Indigenous Fine Arts.
Ken Wilson, former president of the Filmpool, has taught English and Film Studies courses at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, since 2001, where he is also a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Studies. Part of his MFA work included a solo walk through the Haldimand Tract in southwestern Ontario which addressed ongoing histories of colonialism and land theft. His PhD work includes a series of walks in Treaty 4 territory in southern Saskatchewan as a form of embodied territorial acknowledgement.
2019 SIFA JURY
Leah Taylor is the curator for the Kenderdine Art Gallery / College Art Galleries at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. She earned an MA in History in Art from the University of Victoria in 2011and a BFA from the University of Saskatchewan in 2004. In 2018, Taylor did a six-month Curatorial Residency with the Banff Centre for the Arts, International Curatorial Institute. Taylor’s curatorial research interests focus on politically and socially engaged contemporary art. She currently sits on the Board and Editorial Committee for BlackFlash Magazine. She has also served on the Artist Selection Committee for Nuit Blanche Saskatoon since 2015.
Layton Burton has been a cinematographer and director of photography for over 35 years. His work experience includes commercials, documentaries, television series and feature films. As a passionate Saskatchewan filmmaker, Layton has devoted much of his time and experience to young independent filmmakers in the province and he’s been a tireless advocate for the future of film as an industry in Saskatchewan. Currently Layton is an instructor at the University of Regina’s School of Journalism where he teaches broadcast news and feature documentary production. He is also working on his master’s degree in film and gender studies. Film is good business.
Mike Rollo’s work explores alternative approaches to documentary cinema — methods which thematise vanishing communication cultures, industrial developments, and transitional spaces through references to memory, history, religion, and autobiography. A
founding member of Montreal’s experimental film collective Double Negative, Mike has curated the work of prominent international and Canadian experimental filmmakers. Currently, he is a founding member of Independent Visions a curatorial incubator devoted to making independent and experimental media accessible to a diverse audience in Regina and board member for WNDX: Festival of Moving Image in Winnipeg. Mike’s films have screened at prestigious festivals and galleries such as the Atlanta Film Festival (USA), Edinburgh Film Festival, FID Marseille, Kassel Documentary Film Festival (Germany), Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (USA), Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montreal, International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao, Los Angeles Film Forum, Museum of Modern Art (Brazil) and Rotterdam International Film Festival.
Rollo’s film Ghosts and Gravel Roads (2008) was honoured as one of Canada’s Top Ten Shorts in 2008 by the Toronto International Film Group. His latest film Farewell Transmission (2017) won Best Short Film at the Saskatchewan Independent Film Awards in
2018.
2018 SIFA JURY
Bernadette Mullen is a film and stage actor, has a BFA from the university of Regina and a graduate of Globe Theatre Conservatory program. Some of Bernadette's work includes Gillian in Brian Stockton's, Sabbatical and Ms. Dash in Lucas Frison's, Talent, as well as roles in numerous short films. Bernadette received a Best Actor nomination at the 2015 SIFA awards for her role as Dr. Bennett in Elise Beaudry-Fernand's R.C.I. In addition, Bernadette coaches and directs youth in acting and writing for the stage.
Trudy Stewart is a storyteller based in Regina, Saskatchewan and proud member of the Flying Dust First Nation. She is a Writer, Director and Producer, as well as a Programmer for the imagineNATIVE film + media arts festival in Toronto, ON. Trudy is currently writing her first feature film.
Jason Rister is a Regina based director, cinematographer and colourist, and an active member of Saskatchewan's independent filmmaking community. As a colourist Jason recent work includes the documentary 'Unbroken' on Olympian Mark McMorris, as well as the Saskatchewan TV series ‘Nordic Lodge’. Over the past five years, Jason has supported and worked on numerous Saskatchewan independent film projects.
2017 SIFA JURY
Marcel Petit (Saskatoon)
Saskatchewan born Cree Metis artist, Marcel Petit is an independent producer, filmmaker, actor, photographer and playwright from Saskatoon, SK where he runs his independent production company m.pet productions.
Marcel has several film/video works to his name including short dramatic pieces to several short videos to feature documentaries.
Christine Ramsay (Regina)
Dr. Christine Ramsay is Professor in the Department of Film at the University of Regina. Her research and teaching are in the areas of Canadian and Saskatchewan cinemas, masculinities in contemporary cinemas, curatorial studies in expanded cinema, the culture of small cities, and philosophies of identity. She currently serves as the Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Studies programs in the Faculty of MAP at the University of Regina, and as President of the Board of the Art Gallery of Regina, and has served as past President of the Regina Arts Commission and the Film Studies Association of Canada, and as Host of Prairie Night at the Movies for the Saskatchewan Communications Network.
Hugh Patterson (Regina)
Hugh is a Regina based film producer with Echolands Creative Group. His numerous producing credits include WolfCop (2014), Chelsea (2014), Another WolfCop (2017) and soon to be released SUPERGRID (2018).
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