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Award-winning Métis film director/screenwriter Benjamin Ross Hayden is the recipient of this year’s RBC Emerging Artist Award. He received the award at the Calgary Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions in March.
Hayden was a winner in one of the six categories that marks the Cultural Leaders Legacy Artist Awards.
Hayden’s debut feature film “Northlander” was selected for the Perspective Canada program at the Cannes Film Festival. Hayden is the youngest filmmaker in Canada to be accepted to the prestigious Telefilm Micro budget program in all roles of director, writer, and producer.
Hayden is the founder of Manifold Pictures. His recent films have portrayed Indigenous futurism narratives concerned with Métis history, humanity’s impact on earth, and interpreting Canadian history as mythology.
The Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions is an annual opportunity for artists, arts administrators, volunteers, sponsors, other supporters, and community builders to celebrate the arts and those who are champions.
There were more than 650 guests in attendance. The pre-lunch TELUS Youth Arts Showcase had 150 young artists greet guests as they arrived and it culminated in a mass choir.