USask alumna receives numerous awards for her documentary nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up

By Shannon Boklaschuk

University of Saskatchewan alumna Dr. Tasha Hubbard (PhD) has been honoured by the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) and by imagineNATIVE for her documentary film nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up.

Hubbard (BA’94, MA’06) is a graduate of USask’s College of Arts and Science and a former faculty member in the college’s Department of English.

Her documentary nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up became the first film by an Indigenous woman filmmaker to open the prestigious Hot Docs festival in Toronto. The film explores the story of a young Indigenous man named Colten Boushie, who was killed on Gerald Stanley’s Saskatchewan farm in August 2016.

The jury’s subsequent acquittal of Stanley captured international attention, raising questions about racism embedded within Canada’s legal system and propelling the Boushie family to national and international stages in their pursuit of justice.

The winners of the 2019 DGC Awards were announced on Oct. 26 in Toronto. There were more than 350 submissions for the 18^th annual DGC Awards, in both film and television, from across the country.

DGC is a national labour organization that represents more than 4,800 key creative and logistical personnel in the screen-based industry covering all areas of direction, design, production and editing. Hubbard received the DGC's Discovery Award.

Just one day later, on Oct. 27, Hubbard was honoured with two awards in Toronto at the 2019 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival: The Sun Jury Award and the Audience Choice Award - Feature Film. Each award came with a $1,000 cash prize. The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest festival showcasing film, video, audio and digital and interactive media made by Indigenous screen-content creators.

Hubbard was previously awarded the 2019 Special Jury Prize for Social Justice at the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) and the Hot Docs 2019 Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award, which included a $10,000 cash prize.

Related Articles