Video Portraits

 
 

Close-up on the arts

Since 2013, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance have put out a call to professional filmmakers in Canada to create video portraits of the award winners.

The response from the media arts community is always enthusiastic, as it represents a unique opportunity to produce an artistic short film about a key figure in the visual, media arts, or fine craft. The commissioned filmmakers create the videos in a fully creative and collaborative way with the artists. The videos then take on a life of their own, becoming works of art themselves.

Video production

The request for proposals from filmmakers across Canada to create videos on the 2026 GGArts winners will be issued in the fall of 2025.

2025 filmmakers

Darcy Hennessy (Gibsons, British Columbia)
Video portrait of Peter Pierobon

Dallas Soonias (Calgary, Alberta)
Video portrait of Daina Augaitis

Matthew Brown (Bloomfield, New Brunswick)
Video portrait of Thaddeus Hołownia

Anushay Sheikh and David Willem Boot (Toronto, Ontario)
Video portrait of Bruce LaBruce

David Hartman (Guelph, Ontario)
Video portrait of Kent Monkman

Alixandra Buck (Hamilton, Ontario)
Video portrait of Clive Robertson

Aude Leroux-Lévesque and Sébastien Rist (Montréal, Quebec)
Video portrait of Sandra Rodriguez

Latif Ullah (Vancouver, British Columbia)
Video portrait of Jin-me Yoon

A man and a woman pose with a work of art comprised of a large photograph and a pile of rocks.
Filmmaker Latif Ullah and visual artist and 2025 GGArts winner Jin-me Yoon.
Photo: Latif Ullah
Two men in coats and toques stand next to a camera with a field behind them fading into the horizon.
Filmmaker Matthew Brown and visual artist and 2025 GGArts winner Thaddeus Hołownia on location.
Photo: Matt Brown

Video archive

In addition to the GGArts website, the videos are available on YouTube. 

Visit the winners page to see this year's video portraits