The Winnipeg Film Group’s Fall 2023 MFM Marketing Fund Recipients!

MC de Natividad was awarded $600.00 for Bumalik. 

MC de Natividad is a Filipina-Canadian non-traditional emerging filmmaker residing as a settler in Treaty One Territory / Winnipeg.

Because of her unique experience as a 1.5-generation immigrant and woman of colour in a key leadership position, she uses this privilege to build bridges, create opportunities and uplift communities, stories and voices long overlooked and underrepresented in the film industry.

Her motivation is to explore uncharted waters in film, challenging traditional norms and conventions. Her dedication to portraying cultural identity in nuanced and authentic ways serves as a compass guiding her artistic endeavours.

de Natividad believes that filmmaking has the ability to create transformative change. She aims to ensure each project she works on is a vehicle to educate, challenge biases, and foster empathy. Her overall goal is to contribute to a more inclusive and equitable film industry for future generations.

Her debut film, “Bumalik”, a documentary short focusing on her reclamation of her lost native language, was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Winnipeg Film Group | IATSE 856 BIPOC Artist’s Film Fund. It also received additional funding through the Manitoba Film & Music Grant Program for Emerging Talent & Micro-Budget Production and the National Film Board’s Filmmaker Assistance Program. Her film premiered in November 2022 to a sold out show at Winnipeg Film Group and is currently in the festival circuit.

Most recently, “Bumalik” was showcased at the local Kultivation Festival (August 2023), a week-long celebration of Filipino food, art, music and dance. The film was also an official selection for the Vancouver Asian Film Festival (November 2023), the longest-running Asian film festival in Canada.

“Bumalik” was a finalist for the following Vancouver Asian Film Festival awards:
-Best Cinematography for Canadian Documentary Short Award
-Best Director for Canadian Documentary Short Award
-and Best Canadian Documentary Short Award

 

Karen Tusa was awarded $600.00 for A Birthday Tale.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Karen Tusa is an award winning Actress and Producer. Karen is an Active National Member of the Television Academy under the Producer’s Peer Group (The Emmys), a Location Scout and Location Manager Full member of the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), a member of the Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) and on the Awards committee for the LMGI Awards , as well as a member of ACTRA. Karen also sits on various juries and screening committees for Esteemed Film Festivals and Awards including a Blue Ribbon Judge for the Children’s and Family Emmy’s and Daytime Emmys and is the Marketing Director of the Winnipeg Real to Reel Film Festival.

Karen has appeared in many films and commercials and decided to help out behind the scenes as a producer and has worked on many to date and won many awards. Some highlights: Producer on Five True Friends has won 13 awards to date, Producer on Jenny & Jeff Mini-series: The series went on to win 16 awards all over the world including 5 in Los Angeles, CA and nominated for over 35 awards screening at festivals worldwide and a TV Series based on the Mini series was offered from a distributor, Producer on Closing Time Documentary: It won 2 Awards at Accolade Global Film Competition in California, Won Best Documentary at the World Premiere Film Awards and nominated for Best Documentary Short and screened in Long Beach, California at Long Beach Indie Film Festival. It was acquired by CBC Land & Sea for national broadcast as well as screening as part of Culture Days across Canada. Five True Friends has won 13 awards to date and also entered into the Canadian Screen Awards. A Birthday Tale has so far garnered 9 awards and premiering in Hollywood at the TCL Chinese Theatre as part of the Golden State Film Festival. 

Karen was also the President/CEO of Family Friendly Video Inc., (Canadian based operation for US Company) Karen successfully ran this company which sold Family Friendly and Faith-based movies all over the world.

 

Heidi Phillips was awarded $400.00 for Valley of Light.

Heidi Phillips is an experimental filmmaker and installation artist from Manitoba, Canada with an affinity for the tactility of the filmic medium. Phillips’ often uses thrifted super 8 films, contact printing and darkroom experiments to push her work into new places. Phillips’ old school process frequently becomes part of the content, as grainy scratched films are merged with images lifted from found footage to create mesmerizing, transcendent works.

 

Greg Hanec was awarded $400.00 for Think at Night.

Greg Hanec began making films in 1980 with his short 3 Minutes Before 8. He followed this up with a few more shorts and then in 1985 completed his first feature Downtime which screened at the 1986 Berlin Film Festival. In 1988, he followed up with his second feature Tunes A Plenty about a group of musicians who spend their time doing music, their way.

Between 1993-1997, Greg worked on various experimental film collaborations, and between 1997 and 2001 Greg Hanec worked with Campbell Martin and conducted a series of Guerrilla Projections using one or two 16 mm projectors and armed with over one thousand assorted film loops hit billboards, moving trains, buildings, snow, stadium score boards, and anything else white to disseminate “temporary graffiti”.

Greg’s most recent short film Fast, Slow, Single was created for the Cinematheque’s 25th anniversary in 2008. From 2008 to the present, Hanec has finished his third feature Think at Night, and is in post production with features four and five, the documentary The Locals as well as the experimental slow cinema project Diagrams. Both are to be released in 2024/2025. In production at the moment is his sixth feature, the part documentary, part mystical sci fi Comocont: Memoir of Materials, due out in 2025.

 

Congratulations to the recipients!

 

The award was juried by a peer assessment committee.

THE WINNIPEG FILM GROUP ACKNOWLEDGES MANITOBA FILM & MUSIC FOR GRACIOUSLY SUPPORTING THIS AWARD