imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival

Named in memory of actor August Schellenberg, the August Schellenberg Award of Excellence is a lifetime achievement award honoring indigenous actors. The award was presented for the first time in 2015.

• 2015 - Tantoo Cardinal
• 2016 - Tom Jackson[16]
• 2017 - Tina Keeper
• 2018 - Michael Greyeyes
• 2019 - Michelle Thrush[19]
• 2020 - Lorne Cardinal[24]
• 2021 - Shirley Cheechoo[22]
• 2022 - Gary Farmer[25]
• 2023 - Jennifer Podemski[21]

NFB/imagineNATIVE Interactive Partnership was started in 2012 for the commissioning and production of new digital and interactive works by established Indigenous artists. Works produced through this program include De Nort (2012) by the ITWE Collective, Similkameen Crossroads (2013) by Tyler Hagan, Ice Fishing (2014) by Jordan Bennett and Red Card (2016) by Cara Mumford. Ice Fishing was subsequently selected to represent Canada at the 2015 Venice Biennale.[26]

The Stolen Sisters Digital Initiative (SSDI) was a 2012 imagineNATIVE artistic commission and national exhibition of four, one-minute digital works by award-winning Canadian Indigenous filmmakers. The commissioned works were created to reflect and respond to the Stolen Sisters, a term adopted by the Aboriginal community and larger social justice organizations of the struggle to find answers for the hundreds of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women across Canada. The four commissioned works were:

• Like it Was Yesterday by Calgary-based artists Jesse Gouchey and Xstine Cook
• Snare by Vancouver-based Anishinaabe artist Lisa Jackson
• When it Rains by the Métis/Chippewa Cree filmmaker Cara Mumford
• Your Courage Will Not Go Unnoticed by the Gitxsan/Lax Gibu artist and journalist Angela Sterritt

This was the first time the Festival partnered to present a simultaneous national exhibition. Working with Amnesty International Canada and Pattison Onestop, a national media company, the short videos were exhibited throughout Toronto's subway system, on display screens in 33 shopping centres across Canada, at the Calgary International Airport, and at the TIFF Bell Lightbox leading up to and during the 2012 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.[27][28]

In 2009, the festival commissioned Zwei Indianer Aus Winnipeg, a short film by Saulteaux filmmaker Darryl Nepinak. The film subsequently screened at the 2009 Berlinale.[29][30]

In March 2008, imagineNATIVE formed the Embargo Collective, an international group of seven Indigenous artists for the purposes of collaborating and challenging one another to create seven new films. Collective members included Helen Haig-Brown, Heiltsuk/Mohawk filmmaker and actress Zoe Leigh Hopkins and Anishnaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson. The resulting films were subsequently screened at the 2010 Berlinale. Following this, Brown's The Cave was awarded a top-ten recognition at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was screened at the 2011 Sundance Festival, while Jackson's Savage won a 2011 Genie Award for best live action short drama.[31]

In 2014, Embargo Collective II focused on women filmmakers. It was curated by Danis Goulet, and included Hopkins, Blackfoot/Sami filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Caroline Monnet. Among the films produced that year was Roberta.[6]

The imagineNATIVE Film + Video Tour provides regional and remote communities access to Indigenous-made film and video from Canada and abroad. In addition to bringing a Festival-favourite feature presentation to these communities, the Tour encourages youth to explore the creation of film and video through a Youth-focused film and video program, discussion and hands-on video-making workshops. The video-making workshops assist and lead youth to create and edit short videos using readily-available technology such as cellphones and webcams. The videos are featured on imagineNATIVE's website and open to public voting, sending the winner to Toronto for the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.

The indigiFLIX Community Screening Series, presented by imagineNATIVE, is hosted in cultural and community centres to reach a broader First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-Native audience beyond the annual Festival in Toronto. Films are selected from past imagineNATIVE Festivals in an effort to keep these important films alive and accessible to the Indigenous community. imagineNATIVE is committed to supporting artists through payment of industry-standard artist fees for all works presented.

The Canadian Indigenous Film Producer Mini-Lab was started as a program to develop skills and talent for emerging Indigenous producers. Among its alumni are Cara Mumford, Michelle Latimer and Jeremy Torrie.[32]

In 2023, imagineNATIVE and Netflix partnered on the Jeff Barnaby Grant, a granting program for emerging indigenous speculative fiction filmmakers created in memory of film director Jeff Barnaby following his death in 2022.[33] The inaugural recipients, announced in May 2023, were Bronwyn Szabo, Walter Scott, Kristina Fithern-Stiele, Gavin Baird and Tank Standing Buffalo.[34]