AMAAS BURSARY PROGRAM

Ado Nkemka | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory) | BIPOC

Leading to an epic mountain top performance, in front of the whole world, “I’m Not Afraid to Sing Anymore” is a VR musical and altered truth fantasy about stepping into one’s power. Once simultaneously feared and rendered invisible as a tall dark-skinned Black woman, A.N. flips the script and throws back her punches at those who wronged her through song. As she collects her debts, she moves through her own fears and insecurities in order to reach the pinnacle of her artistic prowess.

Ashley Bedet | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory)| Continuing Education

Ashley’s project “Moonshot” is an interdisciplinary exploration of what persistence looks like as praxis, embodied through the narrative of a planetary body, a moon.

Clare Mullen | amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory) | Travel

Clare travelled to various Aviation Museums to shoot interviews for part of her film “The Edmonton Storyteller”, a documentary film about Tony Cashman and his role as a Second World War navigator.

Daniel Foreman | amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory) | Travel

Daniel having been selected as a pitch participant for the Diversity of Voices Program at the Banff World Media Festival, this funding will help with travel costs to pitch his “Daughters of the Wolf” and “Tales of Wisakedjak” series.

Dianne Wulf Lopez | amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory) | BIPOC

“Tsinelas (The Slipper)” is a short film about an estranged mother and son who struggle to rekindle familial bonds and heal together through a series of written letters. This story is about sacrifices and deals with themes of immigration, family separation, and intergenerational trauma, that will resonate with audiences across cultures and generations.

Ilsa Ahmad | amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory) | BIPOC

“i love my portal” is a mixed-media installation that will operate as a shrine of spirited objects/desktop icons – small-scale paintings of zoomed in still life objects, soft sculptures, plush toys made of digital collages and screenshots from corrupted family videos printed on fabric, and an experimental video work that follows diaristic narratives.

Kayla Jane Macneill | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory) | Travel

“Litany of Coordinate” is an audio visual exploration of synchronicity and the dichotomy of place within Alberta.

Kenzie Housego | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory) | Continuing Education

Support for Kenzie’s CAAFF, cSPACE residency, where she plans to create prototypes for a new series. Kenzie will be exploring themes concerning the pervasive issue of excessive “health” data tracking, especially in the context of childbirth and infant care.

Lyndi Woo | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory) | BIPOC

The Chinatown Pop Up Movie Club is an event-series where we showcase unique spaces in Calgary’s Chinatown, as well as share knowledge about Chinese culture through cinema. To preserve the culture, place, and spaces in Chinatown, we needed an activity that would attract the younger generation back. Our mission is to “discover hidden spaces, watch classic Chinese and Hong Kong films, have fun, make memories and feel a sense of belonging”.

Matt Prazak | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory) | Travel

Matt travelled to the Okanagan to research and develop the foundation for his next feature film script, POOR MAN’S HAWAII.

Sandra Hurd | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory) | BIPOC

“The Theorist Who Cried Lizard People” is a surreal, fast paced, comedy short film that aims to explore just how far an obsession can go and the importance of having people around you can trust.

Shumaila Hemani | Moh’kinsstis/Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory) | BIPOC

Creation of soundscape compositions featuring video poems and installations highlighting the challenges of energy affordability in Alberta in a community-engaged partnership with Alberta Ecotrust.

Daniel J. Perryman
Lethbridge (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3)
Thy Bard: Shakesonnet (TBS) makes Shakespeare more accessible and engaging. Daniel interviews local artists in order to shake-DOWN Shakespeare’s sonnets before shaking-UP their very own iteration(s). TBS will be available on TELUS Optik TV and Youtube, bringing Shakespeare’s age-old texts into the more accessible and engaging format of a visual podcast.

Adrian Gonzalez De la Peña
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – Travel
Adrian was 1 of 12 participants at Blood In the Snow Film Festival´s Horror Development Lab in Toronto, with his feature film project titled NAUALLI.

Anna Kuelken
Fort Assiniboine (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) – Rural
Farming, feminism and the fight to feed the world. Women Who Dig showcases Canadian women on a journey to combat food insecurity and the industrial farm system by utilizing traditional farming techniques rooted in ancestral history. In this Feature-length documentary.

Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre
Nanton (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3)  – Rural
The “Nanton Grain Elevators Presents” is a film viewing event that happens at the Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre in Nanton Alberta each spring and fall. Often run as a drive in; movies are displayed on the majestic Nanton Grain Elevators creating a unique experience for the film goer.

David Mcgregor
Beaver Lodge (Treaty 8 Territory, MNA Region 6) – Rural
Residue is an expanded cinema project that contrasts spaces where human activity happens on the land with the residue of these interactions.

Geraldine Carr
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) – Travel
Geraldine travelled to the Banff Centre to develop the foundational pieces of her feature film “Father, My Father”.

Jiwoo Kim
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3)- Continuing Education
“No Sheep, No Sleep” is a surreal animated film where the protagonist suffers from insomnia caused by the disruptive presence of sheep.

Katrina Beatty
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) – Travel
Katrina travelled to the Yukon to attend the Available Light Film Festival and present the feature film “Before I Change My Mind.”

Kenzie Housego
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – Travel
Kenzie was accepted to exhibit with the Traveling Exhibitions Program Northwest (TREX) on the TREX WALL at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (AGGP), Alberta from December 2023 – February 2024.

Kyle Whitehead
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – Travel
Kyle Whitehead travelled to Toronto in May 2023 to attend the International Film Labs Gathering hosted by LIFT and present his long-form projection performance work IMMANENT UNION with PIX Film Collective.

Lisa C Murphy
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – Travel
Writer, Artist and Filmmaker hit the roads of rural Alberta to explore hamlets to unearth stories of women whom they were named after. All the while we ask ourselves what is in a name, why should it hold power over a place and what happened to the women both in actuality and in our imagination?

Megan Iyer
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) -BIPOC
Megan’s project is an experimental installation showcasing investigations on the analog glitch realm. Megan is seeking out an analog titlemaker and other unique devices/gear to implement and embed with glitch visuals already created.

Herland
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – Continuing Education
The herland film festival’s philosophies of inclusion were considered radical in its time, and it has played a poignant role in the development of Alberta’s media arts community. “The Legacy of Herland” will initiate an in-depth look at the people of Herland and its legacy, in preparation for a future documentary.

Shelby Charlesworth
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – Continuing Education
Shelby is attended an Artist Residency at Fuse33 hosted in partnership with International Avenue Arts & Culture Centre in Calgary, Alberta.

Tyler Klein Longmire
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – Travel
Tyler travellled to attend the screening of an animated film made at Quickdraw Animation Society’s Animation Lockdown event, as part of the National 48 Film Festival at the TIFF Lightbox cinema, Toronto ON.

Vicki Van Chau
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) – BIPOC
Inspired by Karl Hirzer’s track “Daphne and Desmond” off his upcoming album, filmmaker Vicki Van Chau will be collaborating with Hirzer to create a music video using Super 8 film.

Adam Bentley
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Travel Bursary
Filmmaker Adam Bentley will travel to the Canadian Institute of Planners’ first in-person conference since 2019 to share an episode of My Backyard Dream Home he completed during the Pandemic featuring the story of one of Edmonton’s modern universally accessible garden suites and how its design allows seniors to age in place close to family.

Ana Paula Villanueva Diaz
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
A music demo tape released under the band name Quiet Groove.

Brent Bates
Lethbridge (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Indigenous Artist Bursary
A traditional stop motion and 2D animation short film, which combines video and audio with a digital editing component.

Caleb Witvoet
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Travel Bursary
A solo exhibition in Ottawa, with miniature wall frames from maple, evoking architectural models on a plinth but they are also worn like rings. A video demonstrated how the structures relate to the body and improvised a few room/building layouts. The video played on a TV which was set into a life-size wall frame in the gallery window.

Daniel Foreman
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Travel Bursary
“Abducted” is a suspense thriller feature film that was completely shot and produced in Alberta using all local cast, crew and post production. Daniel Foreman, the writer/director, is taking the film to Cannes Film Festival to pursue international sales and distribution deals.

Dean Laverick
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
“The Evolution of a Gunfighter” is about a young man who interrupts a bank robbery in a small western town and encounters a seasoned gunfighter, who is regretting his decisions in life. As their paths cross, the two men find out that they have more in common than they know.

Doro Buch
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
“Human & Nature” Experience Nature in the middle of the city — by projection mapping I’m turning common objects into displays. The projections create a captivating story and add to the experience through motion, shifting colours or sounds over previously static objects.

Emily Promise Allison
Penhold (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Travel Bursary
“ATLANTICA” is an experimental film that captures the deeply physical and poetic nature of the Atlantic ocean from Newfoundland, Canada.

Heather Morrow
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Emerging Artist Bursary
“Nowhere Normal” is a short film treasure-hunt and romantic comedy about Dinah, her best friend, Nieve, and finding Dinah’s great-grandmother’s heirloom jewellery, before Dinah’s deadbeat dad can.

Hebert Poll Guitierrez
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
Emi laara: little stories to dream, is a hybrid project of animation and theater that defends Afro-Cuban cultural traditions. A beautiful way of saying: I am not African because I was born in Africa. I am African because Africa was born in me. Miles Dean

Jose Macasinag
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
An Interactive Installation entitled “Vacuus Particulae.” This project seeks to illustrate an image of Hope framed by uncertainty.

Sacha Michaud
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Continuing Education Bursary
“Camping” is a stop motion, animated short film about an unhoused person living in Calgary. The project is being completed in partnership with people with that lived experience.

Sandra Lamouche
Fort Macleod (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Indigenous Artist Bursary
A video component for a dance piece that uses Cree syllabics and the Cree language as inspiration.

Tim Folkmann & Patrick Arès-Pilon
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Travel Bursary
“Visual feast” is a mobile, adaptable, environmental image projected installation.This visual event will travel to Alberta music festivals in the summer of 2020 and create unique image projected environments.

Carmen Barboza
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
I am a digital storyteller and glass-mosaic artist, passionate and creative who has found art practice a way to heal and rearrange my life. I will be using digital storytelling to explore Who Am I as an artist and my creative process.

Chris Beauchamp
Grand Prairie (Treaty 8 Territory, MNA Region 6) Rural Artist Bursary
Chris Beauchamp is a photographer, writer, and filmmaker based in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Chris’s project is a short film titled Anyone Out There, developed in collaboration with long-time filmmaking partner Gordie Haakstad. Anyone Out There is a genre-bending sci-fi tragicomedy musical set in a post-apocalyptic future.

Finn Baird McConnell
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
“Old Man River” is a creative media project blending original music composition and documentary film-making. The project explores the inclusion – or lack thereof – of community voices in the Alberta government’s decision-making on coal mining in the province.

Jose Fernando Cienfuegos
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Emerging Artist Bursary
I am working on an installation project, The fruit of the passion 2021, solo. It is one solid step that propels one idea to a shared experience.

Morgan Whalan
Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Continuing Education Bursary
With the help of the continuing education bursary, I’ll be spending time at QuickDraw Animation Society to further develop my animation knowledge. At QAS I plan to rent equipment to work on a personal animation project and take as many workshops as possible!

Naomi Reinhart
Airdrie (Treaty 7 Territory, MNA Region 3) Emerging Artist Bursary
My project is a children’s anthology animation on how animals obtained their distinguishing features based on traditional folklore across the continents. This project was inspired by my love for my nieces and nephews, and the incorporation of them within my own artistic practice.

Savanna Harvey
Beaumont (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Continuing Education Bursary
I am learning how to create and implement exciting audience engagement devices for digital performance production IRL and in real-time: testing new contraptions, props, bots, and hacks. The event will focus on applied methods for online audiences to interact with a performer and their physical environment. Recommended beginner to intermediate.

Sydney Lancaster
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Continuing Education Bursary
My project is a video and audio work exploring aspects of Settler-Colonial history in a particular spot in Alberta. As the daughter of a Settler immigrant, I want to use this work to explore the complex relationship Settlers have to land, and ideas of belonging and memory, in relation to the deeply problematic structures of settler-colonialism that shaped this province and its history.

Veronika McGinnis
Edmonton (Treaty 6 Territory, MNA Region 4) Emerging Artist Bursary
Through this project, I will be exploring human vulnerabilities in hopes of surfacing new modes of healing. I will be creating a film with original audio, through the use of various editing software, digital manipulation, and recording equipment.

Geraldine Fuenmayor
Geraldine is a digital storyteller and passionate about directing, playwriting, and acting, “ I tell my own story as a Hispanic artist in Alberta.” Geraldine is creating videos for the atmospheres of a puppet’s play integrating images, sounds and music. The story is about a kid travelling to three worlds: Cenotes (Deep natural water well inside of a cave system), Tropical forest and Mangroves.

Jonelle Belcourt
Jonelle Belcourt is a Cree filmmaker, she graduated from the Digital Media and IT Program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). Jonelle’s narrative short film is a drama/thriller set in present day, with the 3 main characters being indigenous females. Erika and Mel receive a call from their roommate Mack. They soon discover Mack is in danger and must figure out how to help her.

Julian Zwack
Julian is a media artist and designer based in Calgary (Treaty 7 Territory). He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction in Media Art & Object Design from the Alberta University of the Arts. Julian’s digital ceramics craft art research project explores artistic 3D modeling software + rapid manufacturing 3D clay extrusion technology to produce a body of projection mapped new media ceramic sculptures.

Mackenzie Bedford
Mackenzie Bedford is a multidisciplinary artist obsessed with colour, light and movement. Mackenzie is a 2D animator looking to expand into 3D so she can take Unity and MadMapper courses to learn Projection Mapping. Mackenzie is building her skills at Quickdraw Animation Society.

Maezy Dennie
Maezy is a mixed race born and raised Calgarian. Maezy’s “this isn’t home” is a contemporary short film that explores concepts of time and space within the capacity of human life. Featuring the beautiful videography from 9 different artists of colour, and voice over by Maezy reading her own poetry.

Shawn Pinchbeck
Shawn is an internationally active award winning Alberta based composer, sound artist, new media artist, performer, installation artist, lecturer, curator and sound engineer. His project “Peace of Home” will be a 1 hour radio art piece for Framework Radio based on field recordings made in the spring of 2020 in the Peace Region of Northern Alberta.

Uii Savage
Uii Savage is an emerging artist and writer with a BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts on Treaty 7 Territory in Mohkinstsís (Calgary).Their project “Read The Room” is an immersive video installation investigating online parasocial relationships performed through artificially intelligent influencers on various social media platforms and the internet.

Andrew Mohr
Creation of the forest environment within an animated short film: Andrew and his team are creating a 10 minute 3D animated short film called The Road to Greathaven; a psychological thriller built around the Jungian concept of “The Shadow”.

Sandra Vida
Sandra is working on a 3-channel video projection installation. She traveled to the Soul Noir Festival near Dublin where she was a featured artist to show her film The Crossing Place.

Wendy Hyman
Wendy will be attending a screenwriting class with FAVA this May to work in her film Making Time. This will be her first time writing and directing her own feature film.

Dianne Lopez-Mahoney
Dianne is an emerging writer/director/ producer from Edmonton, AB. She is working on a musical short film called Where or When with visuals inspired by the Golden Age of Hollywood, the film is a love letter to a bygone era.

Siobhan Mullaney
Siobhan is a recent graduate of Alberta University of the Arts. They are working on The Eternal Express a digitally animated fantasy short following a train in the afterlife.

Donald Morin
Donald is a filmmaker, singer, songwriter, teacher and modern dancer. He is working on his screenplay As a Koden Talking Story Who Is Your Name, a narrative surrounding the issues of globalization and unceded territories.

Magnus Tiesenhausen
Tunnel is the shared practice of artists Magnus Tiesenhausen and Jen Reimer. Their project November, Jade Ring is a 4-channel audio installation and accompanying artist multiple scheduled to be exhibited at the 2020 AGA Biennial in Edmonton, AB.

Beth Wishart MacKenzie
Beth is an educator and award-winning documentary filmmaker based in Edmonton, Alberta. She is working on pikiskwe-speak Art & Film Installation Online. Her project is a medium through which to screen her documentary film, Lana Gets Her Talk. Watch her AMAAS Member profile video

Clea Anais Foofat
Clea is a multifaceted artist now undertaking new work. Clea’s project Circle Zero is a series of thematically driven video works studying repetitive movement and circular motion accompanied by the artist’s recorded audio works.

Brock Geiger
Brock is a songwriter, multi-­instrumentalist, performer, and sound explorer from Calgary, AB. He is working on a body of work Some Nights which is a contemporary blending of musical composition with the incorporation of field recorded, sampled sounds captured throughout the artist’s travels around the world.

Nika Productions
Berkley Brady is a Metis Filmmaker and director of Kohkum & the Quest which will be shown during a screening at C-Space in Calgary. 

Clare Mullen is an award-winning writer, director and actor in both film and theatre. Clare is developing a feature length screenplay and will be taking a screenwriting course offered through FAVA.

Donna Knorren is an aspiring cinematographer, who is creating her first film. Donna will be taking FAVA’s advanced production class,  “Main Course”.

Treaty 6 Productions
Stephanie Harpe, an activist and advocate of the Red Dress Movement and Daniel Foreman, a Métis writer, director and producer of several award winning short films will be creating a series of PSAs for Indigenous women that will be shown across Canada and  available online.

1844 Studios
Nauzanin Knight is a Canadian screenwriter/director/producer of Caribbean and Middle Eastern descent, who strives to create films which highlight the universality of human experience. Nauzanin will be travelling to Whistler for the Whistler Film Festival Doc Lab with her film Undetonated: Women In Terror.

Thorsten Nesch
The Time Traveller is a fictional character created by Thorsten Nesch, and is a multimedia art work of 3 short videos and podcast episodes accompanied by photography and texts on social media.

Riaz Mehmood
Riaz Mehmood is a multidisciplinary artist based in Edmonton who presented two new video works  “Janaka” and “Gul Kari” and gave an artist talk at an evening event organized by Conversalon Contemporary Art Collective in Toronto. 

Jacqueline Huskisson
Jacqueline Huskisson is a practicing fine artist who is beginning to incorporate film into her practice, she will attend classes hosted by CSIF on filmmaking. 

Geraldine Carr
Geraldine Carr is a filmmaker based out of Edmonton who is working on the screenplay for a feature length film. Geraldine will be attending FAVA classes on screenwriting.

Tyler J Stewart
Tyler J Stewart is a curator and writer focused on researching the cultural production and reception of sound. Tyler will be attending Banff’s Arts, Culture, and Digital Transformation Summit. 

Kerry Maguire and Evangelos Lambrinoudis
Kerry Maguire and Evangelos Lambrinoudis will be creating a media series called Past Perfect. Past Perfect includes broadcasts, video recordings, streaming online concerts, and physical ephemera (shirts and zines), their bursary will go towards web hosting fees and material costs.