Lisa Jackson

Early life and education Jackson is an Ojibway member of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Jackson holds a BFA in Film Production from Simon Fraser University and an MFA in Film Production from York University.

Career In 2004, Jackson wrote, directed, and produced Suckerfish, a short experimental documentary about her relationship with her mother. The film, a mixture of photographs and animation, was screened at more than fifty festivals and was broadcast nationally in Canada, on CBC.

From 1999 to 2006, Jackson was a director and producer on the media team at Open Learning Agency, as a scriptwriter and carrying out field production for their online educational media. Her work aired on Knowledge Network, BC's educational broadcaster. From 2007 to 2013, she has worked as a story mentor with "Our World" Initiative and would travel to remote Aboriginal communities in BC and the Yukon to teach digital storytelling workshops. In these workshops, Jackson taught small groups of youth how to make films in Indigenous languages, using contemporary digital technology.

In 2009 and 2014, Jackson worked with Embargo Collective, an ongoing international group of seven Indigenous artists who collaborate and challenge one another to create new films. Savage was the result of the first Embargo Collective in 2009 Intemperance premiered on October 26, 2014 at the closing night of imagineNATIVE.

Since 2014, she has been working as the Director Mentor at National Screen Institute’s Aboriginal Documentary Program. Jackson has recently worked with special projects featuring the production of short films by First Nations filmmakers, including the National Film Board’s Vistas series, screened as part of the public presentations of the Canadian Olympics in Vancouver, and Knowledge Network’s Our First Voices television series on Indigenous languages in British Columbia.

Filmography 2004: Suckerfish – Director/Writer 2007: Reservation Soldiers – Director/Writer/Producer> 2009: The Visit – Director/Writer< 2009: Pushing The Line: Art Without Reservations – Director/Writer 2009: Savage – Director/Writer 2010: Our First Voices – Director/Writer< 2011: Pow.Wow.Wow – Director 2011: Parkdale – Director/Co-writer 2013: Dynamic Range – Director/Writer 2013: Hidden Legacies – Director/Writer 2013 :How a People Live – Director/Writer 2013: Snare – Director/Writer/Producer 2013: How a People Live - Director/Writer 2014: Intemperance – Director/Writer 2015: The Embargo Project – Director (segment) 2016: Secret Location - Virtual reality piece on BC’s Highway of Tears for CBC’s The Current 2017: 1491: The Untold Story of the Americas Before Columbus - docudrama mini-series for APTN and ZDF 2017: Indictment: The Crimes of Shelly Chartier (co-written and directed with Shane Belcourt) 2018: Biidaaban: First Light – Director 2024: Wilfred Buck - Director

Awards and honors In 2004, Jackson received the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival Alliance Atlantis Mentorship award.

In 2005, Jackson was awarded the Vancouver Arts Award for Emerging Media Artists.

In 2008, Jackson's one-hour documentary Reservation Soldiers, for CTV's W5 Presents, was awarded the Golden Sheaf Award at the Yorkton Film Festival for Best Aboriginal Production, the Best Feature Documentary (International) Award at the Talking Stick Film Festival (New Mexico), the Bronze Remi Award at Worldfest Houston 2008 for TV Special: Documentary. the ReelWorld Film Festival Award in Outstanding Canadian Short Film, Leo Awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a short drama (Skeena Reece), Best Editing in a Short Drama, in addition to The ReelWorld Festival Trailblazer Award.

In 2019, after premiering at Tribeca Film Festival, Jackson won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Immersive Experience – Fiction for her VR piece Biidaaban: First Light.

In 2021, Jackson's documentary Wilfred Buck won the Hot Docs Forum Best Canadian Pitch prize.