USask alumna nominated for 2020 Canadian Screen Award

By Shannon Boklaschuk

University of Saskatchewan alumna Dr. Tasha Hubbard (PhD) is a finalist for a 2020 Canadian Screen Award for her acclaimed 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. She is nominated in the Best Feature Length Documentary category.

The nominees for the 2020 Canadian Screen Awards were announced on Feb. 18, 2020, in 141 film, television and digital media categories by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television (the Canadian Academy). A celebration of Canadian visual storytelling and the people who bring these stories to life, the Canadian Screen Awards recognize and champion the authentic voices and universal themes that resonate in Canada and beyond, according to the Canadian Academy.

The awards will be presented in Toronto over five days during Canadian Screen Week, including the Canadian Screen Awards Broadcast Gala, which airs live on CBC and the CBC Gem streaming service on Sunday, March 29, 2020.

The 2020 nominations were chosen by nominating juries and members of the Canadian Academy, with Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta serving as chair of the film jury alongside representatives from production, acting and media industries. The membership will place their votes between Feb. 18 and March 6, 2020, to determine the winners.

Hubbard’s documentary nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up has been recognized with numerous awards since its release, becoming 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.

Hubbard has been previously been honoured by the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) and by imagineNATIVE for nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up.

The winners of the 2019 DGC Awards were announced on Oct. 26, 2019, 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, 2019, 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 also 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.

Other honours for nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up have included the Colin Low Award for Canadian Documentary at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver; the Best of Fest – Audience Choice Award at the Gimli Film Festival in Gimli, Man.; Best Documentary/Best Director at the Weengushk International Film Festival in Little Current, Ont.; and Best of 2019 at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

The documentary will make its broadcast debut on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020, on CBC DOCS POV.

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