CIRCLE VISIONS is a community-building initiative that offers training in storytelling and new media technologies to empower Indigenous filmmakers, activists and artists.  The project stems from our annual summer institute of cross-platform documentary workshops for emergent Indigenous filmmakers initiated in 2016 in collaboration with Wapikoni Mobile and with the support of the Concordia Documentary Centre. Through our  Summer Institute we offer training in such techniques as documentary, sound design, rotoscoping, interviewing, podcasting, projection mapping, drawing on film, under-camera animation, and 360-degree filmmaking. Indigenous participants in Circle Visions workshops have not only acquired new technical skills, but also tackled themes of concern to them through short artworks produced as outcomes to their experimentations, several of which have been featured in film festivals, including Présence autochtone, ImagineNATIVE and Asinabka.

The project was founded and organized by Liz Miller (Communication, Concordia) and Kester Dyer (Film Studies, Carleton University) and supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

Workshops:

Three Sisters 360 VR, (September, 2019) Collaborating Directors: Myriam Landry, Indigenous Garden at Montreal Botanical Gardens Kanerahtakwas Eve Deom/ Instructors: Liz Miller, Emilie Trudeau

360 World Views & 360 VR (June 2019) Coordinators: Liz Miller, Kester Dyer/ Indigenous Mentor:
Daphne Boyer / Student Instructors: Émilie Trudeau and Zaccary Dyck Participants: Naomi, Craig, Melina, Daniel, Karen Pinette Fontaine.

Projection Mapping, Animation & Imaginary Story Worlds (May, 2018) Coordinators: Liz Miller, Kester Dyer/ Indigenous Mentor and Animation Instructor: Alisi Telengut, Student Instructors: Jaelle Dutremble-Rivet, Zaccary Dyck / Participants: Mélina, Mailys, Chris, and Jemmy

Filming & Writing at The Shore Line (May, 2017) Instructors: Liz Miller, Matt Soar, MJ Thompson, Kester Dyer/ Participants:Eden, Melina, Jemmy and Chris/ Indigenous Mentor: Cherry Smiley

Taking on Representation through Documentary, Animation and the “Green Screen”  Co-wreck the Record, (April, 2016) Instructors: Liz Miller, Julie Anne Bautista Beauchesn, AJ Cordeiro, Matt Soar, Kester Dyer / Participants:
Naomi Condo, Ray, Craig and Chris / Guests: Jason Lewis, Elizabeth Fast, Ezra Winton, Sonia Bonspille Boileaum Karl Hele.