#FIRSTLOOK: “SINGING BACK THE BUFFALO” WINS DOCUMENTARY AWARD AT IMAGINENATIVE25

SINGING BACK THE BUFFALO, from Award-Winning Documentarian Tasha Hubbard (seen above with Jason Ryle), wins the Documentary Feature Award, in honour of Alanis Obomsawin, at imagineNATIVE25.

Awards:
GEMFest 25: Winner Best Documentary
GEMFest 25: Winner Best Direction
Ely Film Festival 25: Audience Choice and Independent Spirit Award
Invermere Film Festival 25: Audience Award
DOXA 2024 Winner Nigel Moore Award – Special Jury Mention
Hot Docs 24: Nominee Audience Award
Hot Docs 24: Nominee Land Sky Sea Award
CIFF 2024 Winner Audience Choice Award
CIFF: 2024 Winner Honourable Mention
AMPIA 24: 2024 Winner Rosie
Indies 24: Nominee Outstanding Cinematography

Singing Back the Buffalo, the documentary from award-winning Cree filmmaker Tasha Hubbard (nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, Birth of a Family), has won the Documentary Feature Award, in honour of Alanis Obomsawin at imagineNATIVE25. With support from TVO, this award recognizes an outstanding documentary feature-length film with a $5,000 cash prize.

Richly visualised and deeply uplifting, Singing Back the Buffalo, an epic reimagining of North America through the lens of buffalo consciousness and a potent dream of what is within our grasp, follows Indigenous visionaries and communities who are rematriating the buffalo to the lands they once defined.

“I want to acknowledge the incredible documentary filmmakers at imagineNATIVE, and also all the brilliant documentaries that have moved audiences at this festival for the past 25 years. I started coming in 2000 and I have been deeply inspired by everyone’s films, including those of Alanis. Thank you to the festival and the jury for this honour. I want to acknowledge also the two mentors who are the reason I am here, Doug Cuthand and the late Gil Cardinal. I didn’t know this could be my career, and I am grateful for their belief in me from the start.

Indigenous documentaries can be unflinching, heart-breaking, and incandescently brave in the face of colonial injustice and environmental degradation. And as my teachers tell me, we also need to find hope and joy, the incredible beauty that we all carry within us and the love we have for our lands and more than human relatives.

Thank you to the Buffalo People, both in human and animal form. Thank you to my producers, Jason Ryle, Bonnie Thompson and George Hupka, our trusting funders, our dedicated crew. And thank you to the young people in my life who remind me why we all do this work,” said Hubbard.

Singing Back the Buffalo is written and directed by Hubbard and produced by Hubbard, Jason Ryle (Amplify), George Hupka (nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, Obmin, On the Edge), associate produced by Marie-Eve Marchand (Iniskim), and executive produced by Bonnie Thompson (The Secret Society, nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up). Available on CBC Gem as part of the Nature of Things and the feature version will be on APTN later in 2025. Canadian distribution is handled by Cinema Politica.

Hubbard (Cree) is an award-winning filmmaker, a buffalo academic and buffalo activist. Together with Blackfoot Elder Leroy Little Bear, Hubbard weaves an intimate story of humanity’s connections to buffalo and meticulously reveals how their return to the Great Plains can indeed usher in a new era of sustainability and balance. On her journey spanning eight years, Hubbard explores the challenges faced by buffalo allies and shares the positive steps already taken towards the ultimate – but uncertain – goal of buffalo rematriation. After their dark recent history of almost extinction, and in this time of immense environmental degradation and global uncertainty, the buffalo can lead us to a better tomorrow.

Singing Back the Buffalo is produced in association with CBC and APTN and produced with the participation of the Canada Media Fund, the Indigenous Screen Office and Telefilm Canada, with the assistance of the Government of Alberta, the participation of the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit and Rogers Documentary Fund, as well as fiscal sponsorship provided by Redford Center.

ABOUT THE TEAM
Dr. Tasha Hubbard, Writer/Director/Producer: Dr. Tasha Hubbard is a filmmaker and an associate professor in the Faculty of Native Studies/Department of English and Film at the University of Alberta. She is from Peepeekisis First Nation in Treaty Four Territory and has ties to several First Nations in Treaty Six Territory through her father. She is also the mother of a seventeen-year-old son. Her academic research supports Indigenous efforts to return the buffalo to the lands, as well as Indigenous narrative sovereignty in North America. She has been working to support the Buffalo Treaty since 2015 and is one of the founding directors of the International Buffalo Relations Institute. Her first solo writing/directing project Two Worlds Colliding, about Saskatoon’s infamous Starlight Tours, premiered at ImagineNATIVE in 2004 and won the Canada Award at the Gemini Awards in 2005. In 2017, she directed an NFB-produced feature documentary called Birth of a Family about a 60s Scoop family coming together for the first time during a holiday in Banff. Her last film was nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, an exploration of the impact of the death of Colten Boushie that premiered in the spring of 2019. It was the first Indigenous-directed film to open the Hot Docs International Film Festival while winning Best Canadian Feature. It also won the Colin Low Award for the top Canadian film at the DOXA International Film Festival and the Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Documentary in 2020. Hubbard was awarded the DGC Discovery award in 2019.

Jason Ryle, Producer: Jason Ryle is a producer, programmer, curator, story editor, and arts consultant based in Toronto. Through his mother, he is Anishinaabe and a member of Lake St. Martin First Nation, Manitoba. Jason was the Executive Director of imagineNATIVE from July 2010 to June 2020. In addition to Singing Back the Buffalo, Jason has produced the docuseries Amplify for APTN and several award-winning shorts. In February 2021, Jason received the Clyde Gilmour Award from the Toronto Film Critics Association. The award is bestowed to Canadians whose work has in some way enriched the understanding and appreciation of film in their native country. Jason is also the International Programmer, Indigenous Cinema for TIFF.

George Hupka, DOP, Producer: George is a freelance Director and DP, who has worked with Tasha for over 25 years. They formed Downstream Documentary Productions to make nîpawistamâsowin and continue to bring Indigenous stories to the screen. As a cinematographer, Hupka has shot projects around the world for the UK’s Windfall Films, documentary features and shorts for the National Film Board, and many award-winning projects for CBC, CTV, and TSN. He directed and produced Obmin, a documentary about the Soviet Union before the fall of the Berlin Wall as seen through the eyes of Canadian exchange students and was the producer and DP of the Rogers series On the Edge. His short film about photographer and artist Lesia Maruschak, The Diggers, was recently screened at Landskrona Foto Festival in Sweden.

Bonnie Thompson, Executive Producer: Bonnie is a veteran and independent Canadian media producer of documentary, animation, and interactive projects. She worked as a producer with the National Film Board of Canada for many years, and now works independently. Her numerous feature and short documentary, animation, and interactive productions have been screened by national and international broadcasters and streamers (CBC, The Doc Channel, SuperChannel, APTN, PBS, NHK, Netflix, Apple), in festivals around the world (TIFF, Hot Docs, IDFA, Berlin, Sundance, Annecy) and on the web, with numerous awards and nominations, including Canadian Screen nominations and awards, an Oscar and Emmy nomination, and Webby awards. She was awarded the prestigious Don Haig Award at Hot Docs 2023.