Sonya Ballantyne - Indigenous Writer/Filmmaker in Residence
Sonya Ballantyne is a Swampy Cree writer and filmmaker from the Misipawistik Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba. Her work focuses on contemporary and futuristic portrayals of Indigenous women and girls.
Sonya is the founder and creative director of the film production company Code Breaker Films. She began her career as a filmmaker when she won the 2014 Gimli Film Festival pitch competition and premiered her winning film “Crash Site” at the 2015 festival. Sonya won the imagineNative short film pitch competition in 2016 for the film “Eagle Girl,” which premiered at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival. In 2017, she spoke at TedX Winnipeg with the talk titled “If I don’t see myself how do I know I exist”, which spoke about the resilience she found in the media she consumed.
Sonya is a full-time freelance writer having written for book anthologies such as Dark Horse Comics’ Pros and Comic Cons, television shows such as CTV Comedy’s Acting Good, YouTube content for Sesame Street, and the hybrid game event The Walking Dead LAST MILE. The Death Tour is her feature directorial debut.
Robert Jago - Indigenous Journalist/Writer in Residence
Robert Jago is a writer and entrepreneur from the Kwantlen First Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe. He has written on Indigenous issues for the Walrus Magazine, Globe and Mail, Macleans, the Guardian and more. He has most recently hosted the podcast, Pretendians - which investigated false claims of Indigenous identity.
Besides his work in the media, he has been active in governance reform in his home First Nation, and has brought together community members to push for free speech and democracy on reserve. For the last two years he has been working with a downtown eastside charity, to help aspiring entrepreneurs create microbusinesses, with the goal of lifting them out of poverty. In the meantime, he has also created his own business, which provides key data on Indigenous communities to journalists and local government looking to work with First Nations.