BIOGRAPHY
MARIE CLEMENTS
WRITER I DIRECTOR I PRODUCER
Marie Clements is an award-winning writer, director, and producer who has carved her brand of independent story-making under her production banner Marie Clements Media (MCM).
MCM’s current projects include the NFB documentary feature, ‘Lay Down Your Heart’ (VIFF 2022) and ‘Bones of Crows’ (2022, Ayasew Ooskana Pictures), a unique 5-part limited series and concurrent feature film for the CBC, SRC, APTN, Elevation Pictures, and BRON. The film premiered at TIFF 2022, then played various Canadian festivals including VIFF, imagineNATIVE, and Cinéfest Sudbury, where it won the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film. The film is currently in the midst of a Remote Community Tour across remote and rural communities first in British Columbia, and then other provinces, ahead of the Canadian theatrical release slated for March 31, 2023. The film has its US premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in 2023, and a US theatrical release is pending via sales partner Fifth Season (formerly Endeavor Content). The series version will premiere later in 2023 via our broadcast partners.
MCM’s 2019 feature drama debut, ‘Red Snow’, won the WIDC Feature Film Award and was nominated for ten 2019 Leo Awards. Marie was nominated for a DGC Best Director Award for the film and was also named a 2019 Telefilm Canada Birks Diamond Tribute to Women in Film recipient. In 2018, she received the WFF Women on Top Award and WIFTTV Spotlight Impact Award. Her documentary ‘The Road Forward’ was produced by the NFB and premiered at Hot Docs, opened the 2017 DOXA Documentary Film Festival, closed the 2018 ImagineNATIVE Film Festival, and received a Best Director Award and Best Film nomination at the American Indian Film Festival. It also received a WGC nomination for Best Documentary script as well as five Leo Awards including Best Production, Best Director, and Best Screenwriter.
‘Looking at Edward Curtis’, a half hour documentary and a series of sixteen short documentaries written/directed/produced by Marie Clements, premiered at the DOXA International Documentary Festival and The Yorkton Film Festival, receiving four nominations for best documentary. The film screened at Seattle’s Beyond the Frame Festival and the Imaginative Film Festival in Toronto. ‘Looking at Edward Curtis’ was produced by MCM and Knowledge Network and broadcast in 2018.
In 2016, MCM produced ‘Number 14’ in association with May Street Productions. A sixty-minute docu-drama starring Sasha Perron, Evan Adams, and Charlene Aleck with an original sound score by Wayne Lavallee, and featuring recording artists Ostwelve and Dani & Lizzi. Shot in Vancouver and Victoria, ‘Number 14’ brought together documentary subjects, established and emerging actors, and over thirty first time actors and 25 Minor hockey players. It was awarded Best Public Service Film at The American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco in 2015, and went on to win Best Audience Choice Award at The Reel Reservations Talking Stick Festival in 2016.
MCM is currently in development for her feature drama ‘Tombs’ with Screen Siren and MCM, as well as a new feature musical documentary co-produced by Rezolution Pictures.
AWARDS
2023 Best Drama - Breck Film Festival – Bones of Crows
2023 Best Screenwriting - Breck Film Festival – Bones of Crows
2023 Best Narrative Feature Film - South Dakota International Film Festival – Bones of Crows
2023 First Prize - Air Canada Matera Award - Matera International Film Festival – Bones of Crows
2023 APTN Award - Outstanding Achievement of the Year in Aborignal Cinema – Bones of Crows
2023 Audience Choice Award Best Narrative Feature - Cine Las Ameircas International Film Festival – Bones of Crows
2023 Best Feature Film - Big Apple Film Festival Spring Addition – Bones of Crows
2023 Best Direction Motion Picture – Leo Awards – Bones of Crows
2023 Best Screenwriting Motion Picture – Leo Awards – Bones of Crows
2023 Audience Award Best International Project – Series Fest US – Bones of Crows five-part series
2023 Nomination Best Original Screenplay – Canadian Screen Awards – Bones of Crows
2023 Nomination Achievement in Music - Original Song – Canadian Screen Awards – Bones of Crows
2023 Audience Choice Award Best Canadian Feature - Available Light Film Festival - Bones of Crows
2023 Cultural Current Award - Victoria International Film Festival - Bones of Crows
2023 Nomination WGC Award - Writers Guild of Canada - Bones of Crows
2022 Audience Choice Award Winner - Cinefest Sudbury - Bones of Crows
2020 Best Director - Vancouver International Film Festival - Red Snow
2020 Best Screenplay - Vancouver International Film Festival - Red Snow
2020 Best Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Director - Vancouver International Film Festival - Red Snow
2019 Achievement in Film - LA Skins Festival - Red Snow
2019 Most Popular Feature - Vancouver International Film Festival - Red Snow
2019 DGC Director Nomination - Red Snow
2019 Best Director - American Indian Film Festival - Red Snow
2019 Best Canadian Feature - Edmonton International Film Festival - Red Snow
2019 Leo Award Nomination – Best Screenplay – Red Snow
2019 Leo Award Nomination – 9 Production Nominations – Red Snow
2018 Leo Award – Best Director – The Road Forward
2018 WITVF - Impact Award – Best Director – The Road Forward
2018 WFF - Women on Top Award
2017 Best Director - Native American Indian Film Festival – The Road Forward
2017 Best Film - Dreamspeaker’s Film Festival Award- The Road Forward
2017 Best Documentary - American Indian Film Festival - The Road Forward.
2017 Best BC Film Nomination. Vancouver Critic’s - The Road Forward.
2016 Audience Choice Award- Reel Reservations - Number 14
2015 Best Public Service Film - The American Indian Film Festival - Number 14
2013 Shaw Media Award - Pilgrims
2012 WIDC Feature Film Award- Red Snow
2012 Honorable Mention - Imaginative Film Festival - The Language of Love
2011 Carol Bolt Playwriting Nomination - Shortlisted
2010 Best Music Video - Southeastern Indian Film Festival - The Road Forward
2010 Best Music Video - American Indian Film Festival - The Road Forward
2010 Nomination Jessie Richardson Awards - Outstanding Original Script - The Edward Curtis Project
2008 Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama - Copper Thunderbird
2008 Nomination for Siminovitch Award - Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre
2007 Nomination Best Screenplay - Leo Awards - Unnatural and Accidental
2006 Fleck Fellowship Award - Copper Thunderbird
2005 Nominated for The Webster Journalism Award - Hours of Water
2004 Awarded the Canada-Japan Literary Award - Burning Vision
2004 Shortlisted for the George Ryga Literary Award - Burning Vision
2004 Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama - Burning Vision
2002 Nomination for Siminovitch Award - Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre
2001 Nomination Jessie Richardson Awards - Outstanding Original Play. Burning Vision