TAIS Animation Showcase

Alexandra Lemay

Alexandra Lemay is a stop-motion filmmaker known for her unique blend of charm and a touch of darkness. A pop culture enthusiast and versatile creator, she has crafted puppets, props, and costumes for TV, museums, and advertising, while also working behind the scenes in advertising and on projects like AMC’s Ultra City Smiths. Her acclaimed National Film Board shorts draw on personal experience and relatable themes. During the pandemic, she independently directed Quick Fix, her first live-action animation hybrid. Recently, she co-produced The Dog Ate My Homework with Le Centre Vox, as part of an educational program teaching kids to balance real life and screen time. Currently, she’s developing a dark horror-comedy short inspired by real events, pushing creative boundaries while staying true to her signature tone.

Terril Calder

One of the foremost Métis media artists practicing in Canada today, Terril Calder is a multi-disciplinary creator born in Fort Frances, Ontario, and currently living in Toronto. Calder’s Métis lineage is from the Red River Settlement and the Orkney Cree Métis. While her current practice is focused on stop-motion projects, which she writes, directs, crafts and animates, Calder also has an extensive background in performance art, visual art and media art. Calder’s films have been screened at many major festivals and venues across Canada and internationally, including the Toronto International Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, Rotterdam, the Berlinale, the Tampere Film Festival, Hotdocs, and imagineNATIVE.

In 2019, the Winnipeg Film Group presented the first retrospective of her work, and in 2020 she received her first film festival retrospective, at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Calder’s notable film honours include Best Experimental Film from imagineNATIVE, Audience Award at GIRAF, The Best Canadian Animation Award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, an Honourable Mention at the Sundance Film Festival, a Genie Award nomination for Best Animation, A Screen Award Nomination and a Special Mention at the Berlinale (Generation 14+), 2 prizes at Yorkton Film Festival the Animation Award and the Indigenous Film Award, and Her films Choke (2011) and Snip (2016) were both selected for TIFF’s annual list of Canada’ Top Ten Shorts.

Additional awards include best animation prizes at the Dreamspeakers Festival, the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival, the Indianer Inuit film festival in Stuttgart, and the Intercontinental Biennale of Indigenous Art in Piura, Peru, as well as a Pixie Award for animation. In 2016, Calder won the prestigious K.M. Hunter Artist Award for her contributions to the media arts. As well as the New Voices Award at Tibbecca in their immersive section for her AI installation, Meneath/the mirrors of ethics. In addition to her most recent animated project, Bastard, Calder is co-creating a stop-motion video game with Meagan Byrne, providing animation for Alanis Obomsawin’s Green Horse project, and creating an animated art installation with the Glenn Gould Foundation in celebration of Obomsawin’s lifetime achievement award.