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Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society is a non-profit Artist-Run Centre, supporting independent filmmakers, media artists and arts audiences through facilities and initiatives encompassing production, exhibition, consultation, outreach and advocacy.
● Current Events
Cineworks Indigenous Filmmakers Bursary Recipient: Wayne Wapeemukwa
Cineworks is pleased to announce that Wayne Wapeemukwa has been awarded a Cineworks Annual Indigenous Filmmakers Bursary. Congratulations Wayne!
Wayne Wapeemukwa is an Indigenous (Michif) filmmaker and philosopher based in Canada. His debut feature, Luk’Luk’I, premiered at TIFF, where it won Best Canadian First Feature, as well as the DGC's Discovery Prize for Best New Director. His second feature, Manhunt, opened the International Competition at the Locarno Film Festival, where it received Third Prize from the Junior Jury, and continues its international festival run.
With the assistance of the bursary, Wayne is planning to set out to complete a film project utilizing 16mm film to explore the relationship between buffalo, kinship, and land across Turtle Island and Iraq. Shooting in winter on a Cineworks Bolex, the project will combine observational footage of the buffalo and landscape with experimental time-exposure images of the northern lights and Mesopotamian marshes, mobilizing analog filmmaking approaches to reconnect ecological return, memory, and Indigenous relations to place.
● Current Events
Meet our Summer Interns!
The CIFI position is a youth position made possible by a grant from the Canada Summer Jobs program through the Federal Government Youth and Employment Skills Strategy.
We are very pleased to announce the arrival of Isabel McLean and Zaman Khan who have both joined us as the Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Interns (CIFI).
This position will provide Isabel and Zaman with opportunity to gain work experience with a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting independent filmmakers, media artists, and arts audiences through facilities and initiatives that assist in the production, distribution, and exhibition of independent, non-commercial analogue and digital films.
● Current Events
Cineworks Indigenous Filmmakers Bursary
Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society is grateful to provide its services in support of independent filmmakers on the unceded and ancestral territories of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Acknowledging the harmful effects of colonization in its numerous forms helps us to move through cultural awareness, sensitivity, and competency towards cultural humility as a foundation for creating cultural safety. In alignment with United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act of British Columbia (2019), Cineworks commits to supporting the maintenance, control, protection, and development by Indigenous peoples of their cultural heritage and traditional knowledge through independent filmmaking as a visual art.
We are pleased to provide an annual Cineworks Indigenous Independent Filmmakers Bursary for a local independent filmmaker of Indigenous Ancestry. The bursary has an in-kind value of $1135 in equipment credit that can be used to purchase a one-year production membership (valued at $145) and $1,000 worth of rental of film gear and facilities (for pre-production, production and post-production) through Cineworks. One Cineworks Indigenous Filmmakers Bursary will be awarded each year to support independent Indigenous filmmaking. Interested independent filmmakers of Indigenous ancestry are encouraged to inquire about the bursary by contacting the Cineworks Executive Director at: director@cineworks.ca.
● Current Events
Call to Artists!
Collage on Screen Artist Residency 2026
Early Deadline to Apply: Wednesday, 15 July 2026
Final Deadline to Apply: Sunday, 2 August 2026
Collage on Screen Artist Residency is a five-week program designed to support artists who want to develop a practice that includes motion in their art making. In five virtual meetings over five weeks and through ongoing, online discussion, we will explore the history of collage on screen and the various ways that collage makes its way to the screen and how collage artists operate in the space of moving images and sound. Unlike two-dimensional art, collage on screen is temporal art, meaning it moves through time. Because of this, viewers experience Collage on Screen not as a linear series of images but as an immersive experience. This residency asks, How do we, as collage artists, make artwork that speaks to that?
Designed for collage artists, professional development sessions focus on artist practice, how to develop a story; and how to develop moving images and sound to tell that story.
Residents will make a 30 second film that will be considered for Collage on Screen at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, 23-27 June 2027. If selected, the film will be included in Kolaj Institute’s traveling screening program. Artists may also choose to make longer works which will also be considered.
Info: https://kolajmagazine.com/
Questions: info@kolajinstitute.org
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