Alumni Lookback: Netflix Marks 1,000 Training Program Graduates in Canada with $25,000 Indigenous Filmmaker Grant

Since 2017, Netflix has been proud to provide more than $25 million to support over 20 film training and development programs across Canada. As of last year, more than 1,000 creators have completed one of these Netflix-supported programs. So we provided a $25,000 grant to Nu Media Films in October 2022 to celebrate this milestone and honour alumni like Nu Media Films President Jordan Molaro, who have used the skills they learned in these programs to give back. 

Molaro co-founded the Nu-Media program in 2012. The three-month program gives Indigenous creatives who live on reserves across Manitoba the opportunity to draw on centuries of storytelling while developing video, film, and internet skills to showcase their perspectives. 

In 2019, Molaro was invited to take part in the Netflix-BANFF Diversity of Voices Initiative. The initiative aims to provide an international platform for emerging, mid-career and established creatives to present their projects to the market, meet industry professionals, and network at the BANFF World Media Festival. Each year, up to 100 participants receive a full-access BANFF registration package, and participate in an interactive workshop and networking events at the festival. 

“Being from Winnipeg, Manitoba, we don’t have that same access that you would in Vancouver or Toronto. When you go to BANFF, all the ones who make all the decisions in Canada, they’re all in that room,” said Molaro. “It’s so easy to just talk to them. That gave me more confidence to share that same easy access in my own school.”

The $25,000 grant was given to Jaime Wescoup, an Anishinaabe creative from Long Plain First Nation who completed Molaro’s Nu-Media Program in 2022. The grant will be used to support Wescoup’s first documentary about two female reserve chiefs, Kyra Wilson of Long Plain First Nation and Angela Levasseur of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, leading a male-dominated society. In addition to the funding, Wescoup is being mentored by Molaro, who is also an executive producer on the film.