Daniel O’Hara is a director from Dublin, based in Edinburgh. He has directed television projects for a wide range of international broadcasters and content providers, including Netflix, BBC, Sky, RTÉ and TG4, on shows including Harlan Coben’s The Stranger, Brassic, Doctor Who, and Being Human.

His short films, Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom and
Fluent Dysphasia have won a combined total of 25 awards at international film festivals.

Catherine Martin is a member of the Millbrook Mi'kmaw Community Truro, Nova Scotia. She is an independent international award-winning film producer and director, a writer, facilitator, communications consultant, community activist, teacher, drummer, and the first Mi’kmaw woman filmmaker from the Atlantic region. She is the past Chair of APTN and served on the board for the first five years of its inception.

She has contributed to policy and institutional change to make cultural and arts more accessible to First Nations artists. Her contributions to film, television and digital media in Atlantic Canada were recognized with a WAVE Award from Women in Film and Television Atlantic. She recently honored with a National Peace Award from VOW (Voices of Women) for her years of work as a peace activist. Catherine has contributed to the development of many programs to advance the education of Mi’kmaq and Aboriginal women and youth in the Atlantic Region and across the country, including the Certificate in Community Health at Dalhousie for women in Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Innu, and Inuit communities, the Indigenous Black and Mi’kmaq Law Program also at Dalhousie, and the Indigenous Women in Community Leadership program at the Coady International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University, and Professor for CBU’s BA Community Program.

From 2015 to 2019, Catherine was appointed as the 14th Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. Catherine is a board of governor for Kings College School of Journalism. She was recently awarded the Senate 150 medal and the Order of Canada 2017. She is now the first Director of Indigenous Community Relations at Dalhousie University.

June Scudeler (Métis) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies, cross-appointed with the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, at Simon Fraser University. Her research examines the intersections between queer Indigenous studies, Indigenous literature, film, and art. She is currently delving into Indigenous horror.

She has published articles in Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Canadian Literature, and Studies in Canadian Literature. Her chapters are included in Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics and Literature (University of Arizona Press), Performing Indigeneity (Playwrights Canada Press), Cambridge Handbook to Queer Studies and A People and a Nation: New Directions in Métis Studies.

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 Thunderchild First Nation in Treaty Six Territory. She is also the mother of a fourteen-year-old son. Her academic research is on Indigenous efforts to return the buffalo to the lands and Indigenous film in North America.

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 2016, 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. It premiered at Hot Docs International Film Festival and landed in the top ten audience choice list. It also won the Audience Favourite for Feature Documentary at the Edmonton International Film Festival and the Moon Jury prize at ImagineNATIVE.

Her latest feature documentary is called nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, a personal exploration of the impact of the death of Colten Boushie, that premiered in the spring of 2019. It opened the Hot Docs International Film Festival and won the top Canadian documentary prize. It has won numerous awards, including the Colin Low Award for the top Canadian film at the DOXA International Film Festival and the Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Documentary.

English text below.

Is amhránaí agus ceoltóir traidisiúnta as Corca Dhuibhne, Co. Chiarraí í Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh. Tá cáil uirthi mar amhránaí an sean-nós agus cannan sí amhráin ó réimse leathan eile chomh maith. Tá mórán gradam bainte amach aici, ina measc Amhránaí na Bliana ag Gradam Ceoil T4 2011 agu Rian Traidisiúnta na Bliana ag na RTÉ Radio1 Folk Awards 2018.

Le linn a hóige in Iarthar Chiarraí tomadh Muireann i dtimpeallacht shaibhir chultúrtha agus i dtraidisiún maireachtála ríthábhachtach, a raibh tionchar an-mhór aige ar bhunús a fuaime sainiúil gutha agus uirlise. Tar éis di máistreacht a fháil i dtaibhsiú an ceoil traidisiúnta, do chaith sí breis agus trí bliana déag mar phríomh-amhránaí agus seinnteoir fliúite leis an ngrúpa mór le rá traidisiúnta Danú.

Bíonn sí anois ag taifead is ag seimint go haonarach nó le réimse ealaíontóirí ar nós Julie Fowlis, Séamus Begley, Notify, Ulaid, Bill Whelan agus go leor ealaíontóirí as seánraí eile agus traidisiúin amhránaíochta domhanda a bhfuil spéis mhór aici ann.

Is láithreoir teilifíse agus raidió í Muireann do leithéidí RTÉ, TG4 agus BBC Alba, chomh maith agus cuireann sí a clár ceoil féin “Malairt Poirt le Muireann” i láthair ar RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.

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Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh is a multi-award winning traditional singer and musician from Corca Dhuibhne, West Kerry. A leading exponent of the sean nós style, her repertoire also includes songs from a wide variety of folk and contemporary sources. Her childhood in West Kerry saw her immersed in a rich cultural environment and vital living tradition, which was to be hugely influential on the foundation of her distinctive vocal and instrumental sound.

She has enjoyed a successful career as a touring artist, with over thirteen years experience as lead singer and flute player with the Irish traditional supergroup Danú, as well as a many years performing as a solo artist. Muireann is also a popular television presenter, having hosted a range of programmes for Irish and Scottish TV over the past decade including the celebrated traditional music series “Port”. She currently presents her own music programme “Malairt Poirt le Muireann” on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and has collaborated with many musicians in genres ranging from traditional to classical, world music to electronica.

Joseph Naytowhow is a gifted Plains/Woodland Cree (nehiyaw) singer-songwriter, storyteller, and voice, stage and film actor from the Sturgeon Lake First Nation Band in Saskatchewan. As a child, Joseph was influenced by his grandfather’s traditional and ceremonial chants as well as the sounds of the fiddle and guitar. Today he is renowned for his unique style of Cree/English storytelling, combined with original contemporary music and traditional First Nations drum and rattle songs.

An accomplished performer, Joseph is the recipient of the 2006 Canadian Aboriginal Music Award’s Keeper of the Tradition Award and the 2005 Commemorative Medal for the Saskatchewan Centennial. In 2009 Joseph also received a Gemini Award for Best Individual or Ensemble Performance in an Animated Program or Series for his role in the Wapos Bay series. That same year he was also awarded Best Emerging Male Actor at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival for his role in Run: Broken Yet Brave, and won Best Traditional Male Dancer at John Arcand’s Fiddlefest in Saskatchewan. He has performed for the Prince of Wales, the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan and many other notables. His demanding schedule continues to take him to conferences, symposia, festivals and art/research projects both nationally and internationally.

Fifteen years of study with a Buddhist master, combined with his nêhiyaw/Cree traditional knowledge and experience as an interdisciplinary artist, has nurtured Joseph’s generosity and compassion for sharing cultural knowledge. A much sought-after speaker, counselor, and educator for youth and adults alike, Joseph frequently enjoys opportunities to work as a resident artist and outdoor educator. From 1995 to 2000 he served as the Storyteller-In-Residence for Meadow Lake Tribal Council. More recently Joseph served as Emerging Elder with the Indian Teacher Education Program in Saskatoon, Emerging Elder/Artistic Advisor with Living Sky School Division, and regularly serves as advisor/knowledge keeper with various universities across turtle island.

Joseph holds a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Saskatchewan. As an innovative artist, mentor, and a committed arts educator he fully embraces his own lifelong learning curve.

Pipukwes Latto’law (Raymond Gilbert Sewell) (BA, MA) is l’nu from the Mi’kmaq district of Kespek — specifically Ge’gwapsgug. He is a “community bridger” working at Saint Mary’s University in two roles, Indigenous student advising and religious studies lecturer. He volunteers on many committees and boards including CACUSS Board of Directors, Nova Scotia Writers Federstion Board of Directors and Neptune Theatre's Board of Directors.

Sewell guest lectures and interfaces with many organizations. He is a published poet and a patron of the arts. He is also a traditional instrumentalist as well as performer with an extensive background in music.

Naomi graduated with a Degree in Fine Art Sculpture in Dublin in 1988. After spending ten years in New York, she returned to live in the west of Ireland where she set up Loophead Studio. Together with artist Brian Doyle, she has produced a number of short animated films (influenced by the materials and folklore of the area) that have screened at festivals internationally.

Gregory Scofield is a Red River Métis of Cree, Scottish and European descent whose ancestry can be traced to the fur trade and to Métis community of Kinosota, Manitoba. He has taught Creative Writing and First Nations and Métis Literature at several universities, and he now teaches in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of Victoria. He has published nine celebrated books of poetry and one memoir, Thunder Through My Veins, and is working on a second memoir. His poetry is widely anthologized and has been the focus of several public art installations. He has received several awards, most recently the Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize and the Order of Gabriel Dumont Silver Medal. Scofield is also a skilled bead-worker, and he creates in the medium of traditional Métis arts.