‘Animation is an expression of yourself’

St. Boniface

Winnipeg Métis filmmaker Maxime Kornachuk has been selected to be part of a film program which asks participants to create a new documentary reimagining Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people.

{Re}Defined is a new film initiative of the National Film Board of Canada and Toronto International Film Festival. Some 240 five-page applications were narrowed down to a series of interviews, then further distilled to five selections from across Canada.

Kornachuk, a St. Boniface francophone, delivered an application that showed his work is original, bold, and a strong example of regional representation and language.

The 23-year-old filmmaker recalls that, after being interviewed by {Re}Defined, he had to wait a week — “the most stressful week of my life,” he said.

“If it’s meant to be, it will be,” Kornachuk said he told himself as the stress of waiting built.

The arrival of each new email left him short of breath until one notification changed it all. “{Re}Defined, Congratulations,” the email subject read.

“I quite literally fell to my knees and started crying because it wasn’t just the excitement and the honour I felt, but I finally got my answer,” Kornachuk said. “To be an artist who does something that isn’t very common and to be recognized, to be seen, is such an honour.”

{Re}Defined is trying to establish the next generation of filmmakers and how, as artists, they see themselves as Indigenous people living in Canada.

Kornachuk is at the “nexus” between many different identities, said NFB director of operations John Christou.

“Maxime’s project really stood out. Being a Metis filmmaker from the Red River region… right in the middle of Canada… he has Indigenous identity, Canadian identity, francophone identity, and English identity,” Christou said.

Christou said one of the key goals of {Re}Defined is gaining a stronger understanding of the younger generation’s perspective on Canadian and Indigenous identity.

Christou said Kornachuk’s short film, Our Beaded Flowers, submitted with his written application, paired a documentary narrative style with striking visual animations that fit right into what {Re}Defined was looking for.

Kornachuk trained as a dancer for many years. In Our Beaded Flowers he used an animation technique called “rotoscoping,” which creates animated sequences by tracing live body movement. Kornachuk is seen dancing throughout the film as his beadwork animation style transforms into colours and elements, such as fire.

The film tells the story of Kornachuk’s mother, Moniquem and grandmother, Agnes using their own words from a recorded interview, while he tells his story differently.

“My story is being told through dance, because that’s what I know best,” Kornachuk said. “I know how to tell me story that way.”

The way Kornachuk traced his own dancing in the short film is important.

“(It) was showing that I’m pieces of these things, but I’m not exactly the person I want to be right now. I’m not the Métis person I want to be right now,” said Kornachuk.

Kornachuk’s new film project will begin in the new year and by released by NFB in the fall of 2026.