Chelsea McMullan | |
---|---|
Born | Canada |
Occupation | Documentary filmmaker |
Known for | My Prairie Home , World Famous Gopher Hole Museum , Ever Deadly |
Chelsea McMullan is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, best known for their 2013 film My Prairie Home , a film about transgender musician Rae Spoon. [1]
McMullan is non-binary, and uses they/them pronouns. [2]
McMullan grew up in Langley, British Columbia as an avid basketball player. They received a basketball scholarship to play at Brookswood Secondary School and were scouted to play at the university level in Canada, but eventually decided to pursue an interest in film. [3]
Chelsea McMullan studied film in the Department of Film (now Cinema and Media Arts) at York University in Toronto; graduating with a BFA (Specialized Honours) in 2007.
McMullan's early film credits include the documentary films Derailments (Deragliamenti) and The Way Must Be Tried, and the short films Plume and Bath Time.
McMullan has worked on several projects with the National Film Board of Canada. [4] In addition to My Prairie Home, their prior films Mise en Scène and Deadman were made for the NFB; they first met Spoon when they wanted to secure rights to one of Spoon's songs as background music for Deadman. [5]
My Prairie Home competed in the World Cinema Documentary program at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, [4] and was nominated for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards. [6]
McMullan's 2015 film World Famous Gopher Hole Museum was nominated for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Short Documentary at the 4th Canadian Screen Awards. [7]
In 2022, McMullan and Tanya Tagaq collaborated on the film Ever Deadly . [8] The film Crystal Pite: Angels' Atlas , profiling a dance work by ballet choreographer Crystal Pite, was also released in 2022. [9]
In 2023, McMullan released Swan Song , a documentary film profiling Karen Kain as she prepares to retire from her career in dance. [10]
McMullan's forthcoming projects include a documentary film, Michael Shannon Michael Shannon John, and a narrative feature film, Swan Killer. [1]
Inuit throat singing, or katajjaq, is a distinct type of throat singing uniquely found among the Inuit. It is a form of musical performance, traditionally consisting of two women who sing duets in a close face-to-face formation with no instrumental accompaniment, in an entertaining contest to see who can outlast the other; however, one of the genre's most famous practitioners, Tanya Tagaq, performs as a solo artist. Several groups, including Tudjaat, The Jerry Cans, Quantum Tangle and Silla + Rise, also now blend traditional throat singing with mainstream musical genres such as pop, folk, rock and dance music.
The National Film Board of Canada is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception, which have won over 5,000 awards. The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries.
Tanya Tagaq, also credited as Tagaq, is a Canadian Inuk throat singer, songwriter, novelist, actor, and visual artist from Cambridge Bay (Iqaluktuuttiaq), Nunavut, Canada, on the south coast of Victoria Island.
Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. His credits include Riff-Raff (1991), Shallow Grave (1994), Braveheart (1995), Trainspotting (1996), My Name Is Joe (1998), The Claim (2000), Neds (2010), War Horse (2011), The Fixer (2008), Top of the Lake (2013), Mum (2016-2019), Ozark (2017-2018), Westworld (2018-2020), Cursed (2020), The North Water (2021), The Underground Railroad, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), After the Party (2023), and Baghead (2023).
Michael Dattilo Rubbo is an Australian documentarian/filmmaker.
Rae Spoon is a Canadian musician and writer. Their musical style has varied from country to electronic-influenced indie rock and folk punk.
Crystal Pite is a Canadian choreographer and dancer. She began her professional dance career in 1988 at Ballet BC, and in 1996 she joined Ballett Frankfurt under the tutelage of William Forsythe. After leaving Ballett Frankfurt she became the resident choreographer of Montreal company Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal from 2001 to 2004. She then returned to Vancouver where she focused on choreographing while continuing to dance in her own pieces until 2010. In 2002 she formed her own company called Kidd Pivot, which produced her original works Uncollected Work (2003), Double Story (2004), Lost Action (2006), Dark Matters (2009), The You Show (2010), The Tempest Replica (2011), Betroffenheit (2015), and Revisor (2019) to date. Throughout her career she has been commissioned by many international dance companies to create new pieces, including The Second Person (2007) for Netherlands Dans Theater and Emergence (2009) for the National Ballet of Canada, the latter of which was awarded four Dora Mavor Moore Awards.
Sean O'Neill is a Canadian producer and television personality. From 2015 to 2017, O'Neill was the host of the CBC Television art challenge show Crash Gallery, and in 2018 he co-created the CBC Television documentary series In the Making, which he executive produced and hosted.
Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis are a Canadian animation duo. On January 24, 2012, they received their second Oscar nomination, for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short film, Wild Life (2011). With their latest film, The Flying Sailor, they received several nominations and awards, including for the Best Canadian Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and on January 24, 2023, they received a nomination for the 95th Academy Awards under the category Best Animated Short Film.
My Prairie Home is a 2013 Canadian documentary film about transgender singer/songwriter Rae Spoon, directed by Chelsea McMullan. It features musical performances and interviews about Spoon's troubled childhood, raised by Pentecostal parents obsessed with the Rapture and an abusive father, as well as Spoon's past experiences with gender dysphoria. The film was shot in the Canadian Prairies, including the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller. My Prairie Home was produced by Lea Marin for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
The 2014 edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize was presented on September 22, 2014, at The Carlu event theatre in Toronto, Ontario. Actor Jay Baruchel was the host of the ceremony.
My Prairie Home is an album by Canadian singer-songwriter Rae Spoon, released in 2013. Written and recorded as a soundtrack to the documentary film My Prairie Home, the album was a longlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize.
My Perestroika is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Robin Hessman. It examines life during and after the USSR through the personal stories of five ordinary Russians, who speak about their Soviet childhood, the collapse of the USSR, and contemporary Russia.
Caroline Monnet is an Anishinaabe French and Canadian contemporary artist and filmmaker known for her work in sculpture, installation, and film.
In the Making is a Canadian television documentary series, which premiered on CBC Television on September 21, 2018. Co-created and hosted by Sean O'Neill, the series explores the creative process by profiling notable Canadian artists as they meet pivotal moments in their lives and work.
Jeremiah Hayes is a Canadian film director, writer and editor. Hayes is known for being the co-director, co-writer and the editor of the documentary Reel Injun, which was awarded a Gemini Award in 2010 for Best Direction in a Documentary Program. In 2011, Reel Injun won a Peabody Award for Best Electronic Media. Hayes was the co-editor of Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which was awarded a Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Documentary in 2018. In 2018, Rumble won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary, and in 2017 Rumble won the Special Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. In 2020, Rumble received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. In 2021, Reel Injun is featured in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures core exhibition of the Stories of Cinema.
Ever Deadly is a 2022 Canadian documentary film, directed by Chelsea McMullan and Tanya Tagaq. The film is a portrait of Tagaq's life and career as a musician and activist.
To Kill a Tiger is a 2022 Hindi-language Canadian documentary film, directed by Nisha Pahuja. The film centres on a family in Jharkhand, India, who are campaigning for justice after their teenage daughter was brutally raped.
Crystal Pite: Angels' Atlas is a 2022 Canadian documentary film, directed by Chelsea McMullan. The film profiles choreographer Crystal Pite as she works with the National Ballet of Canada to stage her ballet Angels' Atlas as the company's first new stage production since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live stage productions in 2020, illuminating her creative process through the depiction of rehearsals until ending with a full, uninterrupted performance of the work.
Herman's House is a documentary film, directed by Angad Singh Bhalla and released in 2012. An American, British and Canadian coproduction, the film profiles Herman Wallace, a member of the Angola Three who had been in prison for over 40 years after his shorter prison term for bank robbery was extended with a disputed conviction for a murder he did not commit, and Jackie Sumell, a conceptual artist who has launched a project of building the dream house Wallace wishes he could live in if he is ever released from prison.