The MOSAIC Award was started in 2008 by former Winnipeg Film Group Executive Director, Cecilia Araneda in collaboration with Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA) in an effort to support diverse talent in our local filmmaking community. The first awardees of the fund were Columpa Bobb and Caroline Monnet, two Indigenous women who used the funding to make their first films.
Press: https://uniter.ca/view/developing-a-community-of-filmmakers
Past Recepients:
IKWÉ / Directed by Caroline Monnet, 2009, 4:35 mins
IKWÉ is an experimental film that weaves the narrative of one woman’s (IKWÉ) intimate thoughts with the teachings of her grandmother, the Moon, creating a surreal narrative experience that communicates the power of thoughts and personal reflection.
https://www.criterionchannel.com/ikwe
Caroline Monnet (Anishinaabe/French) is a multidisciplinary artist from Outaouais, Quebec. Deploying visual and media arts to demonstrate complex ideas, Monnet renders Indigenous identity and bicultural living through an examination of shifting cultural histories. She is noted for working with industrial materials processes, blending vocabularies of popular and traditional visual knowledge with tropes of modernist abstraction to create a unique formal language. Consistently occupying the stage of experimentation and invention, her work grapples with the impact of colonialism by updating outdated systems with Indigenous methodologies.
Monnet studied Sociology and Communication at the University of Ottawa (Canada) and the University of Granada (Spain) before pursuing a career in visual arts and film. Her work has been featured at the Whitney Biennial (NYC), Toronto Biennal of Art, KØS museum (Copenhagen), Museum of Contemporary Art (Montréal), the National Art Gallery (Ottawa). Solo exhibitions include Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Arsenal Contemporary (NYC), Centre d’art international de Vassivière (France) and the Art Museum at University of Toronto. Her work is included in numerous collections in North America as well as the permanent UNESCO collection in Paris. Her films have been programmed at film festivals such as Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance, Aesthetica (UK), Palm Springs International Film Festival. In 2016, she was selected for the Cinéfondation residency in Paris. Monnet is recipient of the 2020 Pierre-Ayot award, the Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita Fellowship and the REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards. Finally she was recently named compagne des arts et des lettres du Québec.
She is based in Montréal and is represented by Blouin-Division Gallery.
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Tudor Village: a one shot deal / Directed by Rhayne Vermette, 2012, 5 minutes, 16mm animation
In pursuit of an eclipse, the citizens of Winnipeg flee the city. Meanwhile, stranded in Tudor Village, the caretaker does his best to interrupt their trajectory & entice everyone to return.
Rhayne Vermette was born in Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba. It was while studying architecture at the University of Manitoba, that she fell into the practices of image making and storytelling. Primarily self taught, Rhayne’s films are opulent collages of fiction, animation, documentary, reenactments and divine interruption. Ste. Anne is her first feature narrative.
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Not Just a Funny Girl / Directed by Saira Rahman, 2013, 5 min /
A portrait of a young Muslim woman, Sadiya Durrani, who has gone from being the funny girl in high school to a writer for one of the most internationally popular Canadian television sitcoms.
Snow Angel Films is an independent film production company based in Winnipeg, Canada, and was established in 2010 by sisters Saira Rahman and Nilufer Rahman.
Although Snow Angel was founded primarily to support its first feature documentary film, Arctic Mosque, it has since grown to produce several short films, documentaries and videos for businesses, artists, politicians and non-profit organizations.
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Journey to Canada / Directed by Gertrude Hambira, 2013, 5 min /
One woman’s very personal story about her journey from hardship in
Zimbabwe through the rigors of the immigration process to Canada.
Gertrude Hambira is a filmmaker living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After fleeing Zimbabwe, she has continued to fight for human rights and completed her first Canadian documentary film in 2014.
Press: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/dnto/what-happened-when-you-were-forced-to-intervene-1.3098940/intervening-during-times-of-upheaval-1.3099360
Language Keepers / Directed by Fawnda Neckoway, 202(?), TBD
Language Keepers will follow along two people as they begin to learn the basics of their Indigenous language. This will be an opportunity for language revitalisation, to join with family and elders while gathering resources and reconnecting with our traditional roots back home.
Fawnda Neckoway is from the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation in Manitoba residing in Winnipeg. She has a background in casting, extra’s casting and production management. She’s an honours graduate from the Academy of Acting and is an alumnus of the National Screen Institute’s New Voices Program. Credits include casting for the television animation series ‘Wolf Joe’,’ Taken the Television Series’ for seasons III and IV with Eagle Vision Productions, and was sought out by Casting Director, Stephanie Gorin to assist in a national casting call for ‘Anne with an E’ broadcasted by CBC and Netflix. She’s starred in ‘We Were Children’ as Lyna’s Mother and secured the role of Juliet in the theatre production of Romeo & Juliet.