Streel Films
Founded in 2008 by independent filmmaker, Michelle Latimer, Streel Films is an independent production company focused on the development and production of innovative, socially conscious, character-driven film and television. The goal is to use film, media and television as a tool for social change.
Streel Films recently produced the groundbreaking, award-winning scripted series TRICKSTER, alongside producing partner Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny of Sienna Films/Sphere Media. The series premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival before airing on CBC in Canada and on CW/Shudder/SundanceNOW in the USA. TRICKSTER was named Scripted Series of the Year by Playback Magazine and received 15 Canadian Screen Award nominations and won Best Television Drama Writing Award from the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC). Streel Films also produced, with the support of Field of Vision, the short film NUUCA (executive produced by Laura Poitras and Charlotte Cook) that premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and screened in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, the Berlinale 14+ Program and was shortlisted for an IDA Award. Streel Films has produced work that has screened at film festivals internationally, including Sundance, TIFF, Berlinale, Rotterdam, Hot Docs, ImagineNATIVE, Aspen Shorts, BFI, Oberhausen and Cannes, and has been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada.
Michelle Latimer
Director-Writer-Showrunner
As an independent filmmaker, writer and producer, Michelle Latimer is interested in exploring how sound and image can transform space to create a visceral experience that lends itself to greater cultural awareness and understanding. Her films have been described as "visual poems exploring humanity," and are often experiments of creative form expressed from a personal point of view.
Michelle is an award-winning filmmaker whose works has screened at festivals globally, including Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival, Berlin International, Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Cannes, The National Art Gallery of Canada and the MoMA. Her recent documentary feature adaptation of Thomas King's book INCOVENIENT INDIAN (Bell/NFB), along with the groundbreaking supernatural drama series TRICKSTER (Sienna/Sphere/CBC) that she co-created and directed, both premiered in official selection of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. She is one of a select number of filmmakers in the history of the festival who has had multiple works shown in the same year at TIFF.
INCONVENIENT INDIAN was awarded the Toronto Film Festival's People's Choice Award and the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature and was named to Tiff's "Top Ten Films for 2020". It also received the Director's Guild of Canada "Allan King Award for Excellence in Documentary", the Festival Grand Prix at RIDM, as well as the Magnus Isaacson Award for Social Justice Filmmaking and the Vancouver International Film Festival Audience Choice Award.
TRICKSTER, which Michelle directed and also served as showrunner & Co-Creator, premiered at TIFF to rave reviews and was named by Playback Magazine as the Best Scripted Series for 2020, was nominated for 15 Canadian Screen Awards and won for Best Television Drama Writing at the Writers Guild of Canada awards. The series sold in the USA to the CW Network and streaming platforms AMC's Shudder and SundanceNOW.
Select film works include: the breakout series RISE (2017) which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Documentary Series, CHOKE (2011), which received a Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Mention in International Short Filmmaking, was chosen as one of TIFF Canada's Top Ten in 2012 and nominated for a Canadian Screen Award; THE UNDERGROUND (2014), which premiered at TIFF and won the Best Short Film Prize at the ImagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival, as well as the Canadian National Screen Institute Drama Prize and was selected for Telefilm's Talent Showcase at Cannes. NIMMIKAAGE (2016) which was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada; and the feature-length documentary ALIAS, which was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. Her film NUUCA (Field of Vision), examines the impact the oil industry has on increased rates of violence towards Indigenous women and girls in the Bakken oil fields of South Dakota. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and screened at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and Berlinale Film Festival before it was shortlisted for an IDA Award.
Throughout her career, Michelle has engaged with her community through involvement with organizations such as ImagineNATIVE Film Festival, City Life's Remix Project, Native Earth Performing Arts and ACTRA's Diversity Committee. In 2006, she worked with the Ontario AIDS Network to coordinate the International AIDS Conference Ontario Scholarship Fund for people living with HIV/AIDS. She has created outreach films for AIDS Network of Ontario, Ontario HIV Treatment Network and selected antipoverty campaigns. In 2015, she worked with the Yukon Government and the Tr'ondek Hwechin First Nation to create a series of short films about the intergenerational effects of the residential school experience. This work was integrated in the high school curriculum across the Yukon Territory.
She is an alumna of the Toronto Film Festival's Talent Lab, the inaugural Tiff Studio Producers Program and holds a BFA in Theatre Performance and Film Studies from Concordia University, Montreal. Michelle is the recipient of a Yorkton Festival: Golden Sheaf Award for Outstanding Emerging Filmmaker, the ReelWorld Trailblazers Award and the Chicken in Egg Breakthrough Award, as well as a Field of Vision fellow. In 2020 Michelle was named the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Labs. She was selected by Playback Magazine as one of Canada's Top Ten Filmmakers to Watch of 2013, and the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) recently named her among the "Great Canadian Filmmakers of the Future."
Michelle is of mixed Algonquin, Metis, French and Irish ancestry. She grew up in Thunder Bay, Canada and currently splits her time between Los Angeles and Toronto.
