Programming Selection Committee
2026 Programming Selection Committee
Our Programming Selection Committee is made up of filmmakers, artists, and curators. They provide additional perspectives on individual titles, overarching themes, and the programming structure of the Festival. This year, imagineNATIVE’s Artistic Director, Lindsay Monture, is joined by four industry professionals to oversee the selection of Film + Video works, with two more advising on the selection of Digital + Interactive and Audio works.
Film + Video
Adam Piron
Adam Piron (Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and Mohawk) is a Southern California–based filmmaker, writer, and curator. He is the Director of Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program, where he oversees the organization’s support for Indigenous filmmakers globally, and a co-founder of COUSIN: a film collective dedicated to supporting Indigenous artists experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of the moving image. As a film programmer, he has served as a member of the Sundance Film Festival’s short film programming team since 2013 and was previously the film curator for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as a former member of the programming teams for AFI Docs, AFI Fest, imagineNATIVE, and the LA Film Festival. His films have screened at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight, MOCA Los Angeles, True/False Film Festival, ESPN’s 30 for 30, The New Yorker’s Documentary Series, BlackStar Film Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Camden International Film Festival, and various other festivals and programs. His writing has appeared in The Criterion Collection’s The Daily, Cinema Scope magazine, Documentary magazine, Metrograph, and CNN.
Madeleine Hakaraia de Young
Madeleine Hakaraia de Young (Ngāti Kapu) is the Kaiwhakahau Hōtaka at Māoriland Charitable Trust, where she oversees programming for the Māoriland Film Festival (MFF), the largest presenter of Indigenous screen content in the southern hemisphere. Year-round, Madeleine supports the wider work of the trust as a hub of Māori film and creative excellence centred on Te Uru Maire — the Māoriland Rangatahi Strategy, which nurtures rangatahi to find their voice through film and develop the practical skills to tell their unique stories.
Susan Blight
Susan Blight (Anishinaabe, Couchiching First Nation) is an interdisciplinary artist and decolonial scholar. She served as Chair of Indigenous Visual Culture at OCAD University from 2019-2025 and as Associate Editor, Indigenous Places and Names at The Capilano Review. Susan is an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Arts at the School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design at York University. She is a 2024 recipient of the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Award (Civil Division), one of the highest distinctions a civilian can receive, for her work with Ogimaa Mikana.
Wanda Nanibush
Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe image and word warrior, curator, and community organizer from Beausoleil First Nation, Canada. Based in Toronto, Nanibush is the founding director of aabaakwad, an international yearly gathering of over 80 Indigenous curators, writers, and artists for talks and performances. She won the Toronto Book Award for her co-authored book Moving the Museum which chronicles some of her groundbreaking work at the Art Gallery of Ontario as the inaugural curator of Indigenous Art.
Digital + Interactive
Kahentawaks Tiewishaw
Kahentawaks Tiewishaw is a Kanien′kehá:ka digital artist and game designer from Kanehsatake. A founding member of Revital Software, she creates video games that support Indigenous language revitalization and cultural storytelling. Her work blends traditional knowledge with digital innovation, including projects like Karihonniennihtshera and Katsi′noniowá:nen. Kahentawaks uses game design as a tool for education, empowerment, and cultural preservation.
Wiremu Grace
Wiremu Grace is from the Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Porou, and Te Atiawa tribes of Aotearoa. He has trained and worked as a visual artist, a carver, a musician, a performer, and a Kura kaupapa Māori language teacher. He has produced, performed, written, and directed for radio, television, film, stage, and virtual reality. Currently, he is working on a multimedia exhibition that explores a response to the past and present impacts of colonization.