Renowned festival acquires database of artists and creators

The world’s largest Indigenous film and media arts festival has a new acquisition.

It was announced this past month that the Toronto-based festival imagineNATIVE has acquired Kin Theory, which is an extensive centralized database of Indigenous artists and creators that can be accessed by others when they are looking to fill various positions for film creation and other multi-media practices.

The database outlines skill set and experience. The list was an initiative of the American-based non-profit Nia Tero, which was established to directly support Indigenous people. Up until recently, Nia Tero hosted the database.

Kin Theory was initially created with the goal of increasing opportunities for Indigenous creators by increasing their reach within their respective industries.

“Kin Theory was an initiative by a long-time partner, Nia Tero,” said Naomi Johnson, imagineNATIVE’s executive director. “Nia Tero is a U.S. based (business) in Seattle, a non-profit organization that was a regular contributor and funder to imaginative, and this is one of their projects that they had developed.”

The acquisition will allow imagineNATIVE to take over operations and connect Indigenous artists in the Kin Theory database with imagineNATIVE’s existing programming.

“In June 2019, myself and Michelle Hurtubise came up with the idea for Kin Theory but had always wanted it to live with an Indigenous-led and serving organization,” said co-founder Tracy Rector. “After our funding was cut by Nia Tero, a non-Indigenous led conservation organization, it became a dream to be able to transfer the initiative to imagineNATIVE.”

Festival organizers were receptive to the idea.

“When they accepted the gift and shared their excitement about nurturing it forward, we felt such joy and knew that would be the best home for the database,” Rector said.

This tool allows Indigenous creators and industry partners who are hiring filmmakers and media artists to directly access their information across North America.

“We are the largest screen presenter of Indigenous content in the world,” Johnson said. “Known globally now as an organization that not only just has the festival every year, but we've made decades-long connections and contacts with people across Canada, the U.S. and around the world. And, I think us receiving this database is kind of an acknowledgement of the work that imagineNATIVE has been doing for near 25 years now.”

Each year imagineNATIVE receives many requests from creators who are looking for specific artists from certain places for projects.

“I can't even tell you how many times a year we field emails people looking for certain artists from certain places,” Johnson said. “We view ourselves very much as a service, community- based organization and we want to connect creators with as many opportunities out there as possible.”

Ritchie Hemphill, a Kwak’wala artist from British Columbia, is one of the artists included in the Kin Theory database.

Hemphill is a director, editor, producer, sound designer, writer, curator and photographer who has worked on many projects including short films.

He was only nine years old when he first discovered what a video camera was during a workshop at school and it was then he declared “that I would become a director when I grew up.”

He developed a love for art from a very young age. His father was a painter and his home was always filled with music.

“I am self-taught thanks in a large part to the Internet,” Hemphill said. “I largely learned by doing many rough projects without caring what would happen with them, doing them just for the fun of it.”

He’s had a lot of success and recognition of his work throughout his career.

His first project, Dzunukwa, which premiered at the Whistler Film Festival in 2019, was a short film supported through the TELUS STORYHIVE Indigenous Edition grant.

Məca was screened at the imagineNATIVE Film Festival in 2021, winning the Indigenous Language Production Award. It is now streaming on APTN lumi.

His latest project, an animated documentary called Tiny, screened at the Seattle International Film Festival and Montana’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. It also won awards at the at DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver.

Hemphill said the partnership between Kin Theory and imagineNATIVE is a natural one as the two share similar goals.

“ImagineNATIVE’s established reputation and extensive network will help amplify the platform even further allowing more artists to access it,” he said. “I think it’s a great resource for Indigenous creators. The list is valuable because it gives Indigenous artists, especially those like me in more remote areas, greater visibility and access to a larger community of creators. It’s a very helpful tool for collaboration and networking.”

When he initially was approached to sign up for the database, Hemphill explained he was thrilled to be part of it.

“It was a really simple process to sign-up,” he said. “I created an account on the Kin Theory website, answered a few questions, uploaded my photo and bio, and added information about my work.”

As part of the acquisition, imagineNATIVE will seamlessly transition the database’s current members over to the imagineNATIVE network which will operate on the existing website. They will also manage the day-to-day operations of the Kin Theory database including engaging their network to expand the database’s membership.

The database will be championed to the imagineNATIVE network through events including the annual imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, which welcomes an extensive list of guests each year.

The ownership transition of Kin Theory will take place during the next few months with the database remaining globally accessible at kintheory.org