January 2005

Filmmaker Gil Cardinal (Métis) has directed over thirty documentaries and television dramas with Native themes. In 2004 he joined the programming committee of the National Film Board's Aboriginal Filmmaking Program, which allocates over one million dollars of annual funding towards the production of works by indigenous Canadian filmmakers. His documentary Totem: The Return of the G'psgolox Pole won the Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award in 2003 at the ImagineNATIVE Film Festival in Toronto. It has screened at many other festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003 and the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, DC in 2004. Cardinal's awards include Best Story/Script at the 1998 American Indian Film Festival (Big Bear); Best of the Festival at the 1997 Dreamspeakers Festival (David with F.A.S.); Best of the Festival at the 1994 Alberta Film Awards (Our Home and Native Land); Best Direction, Information or Documentary Program or Series at the 1988 Gemini Awards (Foster Child). Cardinal directed his first films for ACCESS, an Edmonton television station that focuses on educational programming, where he worked his way up from cameraman. He lives and writes in Edmonton, Alberta.

Screened by NMAI

• Totem: The Return of the G'psgolox Pole (2003) director, writer
  
• Big Bear (1998) director, writer
  
• Borders (1995) director
  
• Foster Child (1987) director
  

Image credit: Gil Cardinal with crew - image courtesy of the National Film Board