After a year off, Indigenous film festival ImagineNative returns for 25th anniversary

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This article was published 08/05/2025 (324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO – After taking a year off, organizers at the country’s most prominent Indigenous film festival say they are moving ahead with a belated 25th anniversary.

The ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival opens at Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox on June 3 with “Endless Cookie,” an animated documentary about a pair of half-brothers, one Indigenous and one white.

The film picked up the $50,000 audience award at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival earlier this month.

An outdoor screening of the 2024 horror-comedy “Seeds” closes the fest on June 8 at Fort York. The film is about a Mohawk social media influencer who signs a contract with a suspicious corporate seed company.

ImagineNative returns after it scrapped plans for its 2024 edition, which would’ve marked its quarter-century anniversary.

At the time, executive director Naomi Johnson said they needed more time to support the festival’s growth, develop new programming ideas and themes. 

The move included shifting its normally fall-based event to June to coincide with Indigenous Peoples’ Month.

Organizers say this year’s overarching theme centres on seedkeeping and the passing down of seeds to the next generation. The 2025 edition runs from June 3 to 8 in Toronto, with an online component from June 9 to 15.

Other events tied to ImagineNative this year include its industry days, which feature panels and networking events for the Indigenous community, as well as a closing awards show at the Lightbox with comedian Janelle Niles as host.

ImagineNative launched in 2000 and is billed as “the largest annual Indigenous media arts event in the world.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2025.