ImagineNATIVE celebrates 25 years of Indigenous cinema in summer event

The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto celebrates its 25th year in 2025 with a move to summer.

Naomi Johnson, the festival's executive director, said she's hoping the festival's new June dates will set them apart from the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). In previous years, imagineNATIVE was held in October about a month after TIFF.

"We had to get away from that fall season," she said.

"It's just very packed in the city, especially because we're the first festival to follow TIFF, so it was getting very unmanageable in trying to get our events noticed.

She said this year they've been able to collaborate and cross-promote with other organizations and events across the city which she thinks is a result of the festival's new date. 

This year there are 20 feature films, 79 short films, 14 digital and interactive works and 17 audio works. 

"We have 55 Indigenous nations from all around the world. There's going to be 27 Indigenous languages represented from 16 different countries," Johnson said.

Recently confirmed, Johnson said, is the festival's Art Crawl event on June 5 at the Royal Ontario Museum that will feature Cree artist Kent Monkman's alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.

This year will also include a retrospective of the festival's 25 years.

"A big part of the theme is looking back, acknowledging those that got us here and holding the space now for those that are going to take it one day," Johnson said.

Johnson said her work has brought her to other parts of the world where Indigenous populations are not even recognized by the government. 

"It's kind of a brag, you know, that we have this festival in Canada and it's a tribute to Canada's support of the arts," she said.

Festival launches careers

Trevor Solway, a Blackfoot filmmaker from Siksika Nation, said the festival helped launch his career. 

It's where he met Jason Ryle, imagineNATIVE's longtime artistic director, who went on to produce a few of Solway's projects.

"My very first film called Indian Giver was developed with their mentorship program and it really was like the start of everything for me in filmmaking," Solway told CBC Indigenous. 

He has three works in the festival this year: a feature-length documentary and two short films.

Siksikakowan: The Blackfoot Man is a cinéma vérité-style documentary, filmed over four years, that explores masculinity within his community.

"We've always been this kind of savage Indian or been like this noble Indian. Rarely are we seen as multidimensional people," he said.

Settler is an 11-minute horror film about an 1800s family that moves to Blackfoot Country and is visited by the Blackfoot trickster Napi. Pendleton Man is another short horror film about three young Blackfoot cousins home alone who are haunted by the Pendleton Man.

Of the festival's new date, Solway said it's important for festivals to change and evolve. 

"I'm looking forward to seeing what that looks like in the summer months and during National Indigenous Peoples Month," he said.

Singer/songwriter Lacey Hill from Six Nations and two-time Juno award-winner Derek Miller will be performing at the imagineNATIVE awards presentation, where the August Schellenberg Award of Excellence will be presented to actor Graham Greene.

Hill said she's been a long-time festival attendee and performer.

"I've been watching imagineNATIVE form over the years and been a part of it too with music videos," she said.

"It can stand on its own because it's got all this support."

The in-person festival runs June 3-8 with most screenings at the TIFF Lightbox theatre in Toronto. ImagineNATIVE's online festival runs June 9-15.