🎬 AFCOOP is now accepting Grants for Filmmakers application

📽️ HIFF starts this Wednesday and runs until Sunday! Did you get your tickets/pass?

🦋 Congrats to all the Screen NS Award nominees and winners!

🪢 New submission deadlines, residencies, job opportunities, and community events below!

With grants available to members & non-members, Nova Scotian and non-Nova Scotian residents, there is sure to be a grant that will inspire you to get out there and make something.

Due to funding cuts, AFCOOP will only have one intake period this year. Applications are due August, 1st, 2026. We will not be accepting applications in December.

Which grant will you apply for?

• FIRST THING GRANT

• SUPER-8 BURSARY

• FEEDBACK LOOP

• ANALOGUE FILM GRANT

• INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS GRANT

Read more about the grants & how to apply by going to our website.

AFCOOP has partnered with Fleapit Cinema to present an in-conversation with visiting filmmakers and collaborators, Kalil Haddad and Ryan Steel. Coming from Toronto and Winnipeg respectively, these two filmmakers have been carving out a name for themselves in the independent film scene of Canada.

HIFF showcased a retrospective of Steel’s films back in 2022. Only twenty-three at the time, he had already developed an exploratory and playful body of work informed by a DIY ethic and obsession with hazy analog images. His films have gone on to play at Rotterdamn, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Vancouver International Film Festival, and more. Steel has also worked with some of Canada’s most exciting artists including Rhayne Vermette (contributing to Ste. Anne and Levers, opening HIFF this year), Grace Glowicki (Dead Lover), Andy Shauf, and Guy Maddin. He is currently in post-production on his Telefilm Talent to Watch, “MEAT.”

Haddad is an experimental filmmaker that has been drumming up excitement for his radical approach to form and depiction of queer subjectivities that have been interlaced with meditations on gender, class and race. He has made over a dozen short films, and his works appear in the collections of The Film-makers’ Cooperative, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, and Vtape.

Fleapit Cinema is showcasing a double-feature of Ryan and Kalil’s mixtape featuring their early works, “You Sorta Know It’s Gonna End” and “HE NEVER DIES” a program featuring five of Haddad’s recent shorts on June 11th with Ryan and Kalil in-attendance.

AFCOOP is hosting the two filmmakers for an in-conversation on DIY filmmaking on Friday, June 12th. Join us in an artist talk with these two inspiring Canadian filmmakers.

HALIFAX INDEPENDENT
FILMMAKERS FESTIVAL

PALESTINE 36
Annemarie Jacir | Palestine | 2025 | 120m

KONTINENTAL ‘25
Radu Jude | Romania | 2025 | 109m

KANEHSATAKE: 270 YEARS OF RESISTANCE
Alanis Obbomsawin | 1993 | 119m

Fritz Lang's German expressionist science fiction masterpiece, Metropolis, with a live improvised score. In a techno-future where the world is starkly divided between the elite and the workers, John Fredersen, a wealthy magnate uses unseemly methods to crush a worker uprising led by the charismatic Maria... who also happens to be the object of desire for his son Feder. Accompanied by some of Halifax's most intriguing musicians and improvisers, this matinee screening of a classic film is not to be missed.

Sun, May 24 • 2 pm • Doors at 1:30
Tickets: $20
$12 for Ages 10-18

Musicians:

• Andrew MacKelvie - saxophones, synth

• Andrew Jackson - trombone + effects

• Ellen Gibling - harp

• Gabriella Ciurcovich - bass

• Doug Cameron - drums

Click here to get your tickets!

As artists-in-residence at the Khyber Centre for the Arts, I’thandi Munro & Kay Macdonald are reexamining the structure and framework of their performance work through research, experimentation, and embodied practice.

and so we dance explores the contemporary realities and historic contexts of moving/movement through time and place, specifically looking at the realities of being African Nova Scotian

within the broader context of Black + African American performance traditions. Munro and Macdonald are exploring cultural themes of tension, relation, freedom, and love through the creative modalities of improvisation, contemporary dance and vocalization.
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PERFORMANCES
Sun, May 31 • 2 PM
Mon, June 1 • 6 PM

Applications are now open for Surrender as Process, a six-day immersive artist retreat taking place on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Led by Cape Breton born filmmaker Jacquelyn Mills and hosted by VISIONS, with co-facilitator Benjamin R. Taylor.

This intensive workshop offers 10 selected artists the opportunity to explore a radically embodied approach to the creative process. This retreat is a process-led immersion, rather than focusing on technical instruction, outcomes, or fixed goals. They invite participants to allow intuition and collaboration with the living natural world to guide their work.

Applications Close: June 11, 2026
Workshop Dates: Arrival September 21, Departure September 28, 2026

Read more about the residency, hosts, and how to apply by going to their website here!

Ross Creek Centre for the Arts is looking for Film Instructors for Summer Arts week-long camps. Each week-long program culminates in a showcase celebrating the children’s work, either in the gallery, live, or onscreen, including both collaborative and individual creations that campers develop and take home on the final day of the week.

We offer food, accommodation and a weekly fee for our faculty.

The groups have a max capacity of 15 campers. Each workshop instructor has 2 camp staff counsellors that assist and help.

Seeking instructors for the following:

• July 12-17 Film Studio ( kids 12-16 years old)

• July 19-24 Light, Camera, action! 1 (kids 8-11 years old)

• July 26-31 Lights, Camera, Action! 2 (kids 8-11 years old)

• We offer great deals for faculty's children and families.

If you would like more information, contact Vero Madero at [email protected]

You can also call 902.582.3842!

IATSE 849 is hiring a Membership Coordinator!

Based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, I.A.T.S.E. (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Technicians) Local 849 is hiring for the new Membership Coordinator position. This exciting and dynamic role relates to the film and television production industry and the trade union movement.

Cover letters and resumes should be addressed to Jake Ivany, Operations Manager, I.A.T.S.E. Local 849. Applications can be sent by email to [email protected] with the subject line "Your Name - Membership Coordinator Application."

The application deadline is 11:59 PM AST on June 8th, 2026.

Click here to go to IATSE 849’s site to learn more about the position, qualifications, and compensation.

Learn the basics of filmmaking from industry professionals this summer for free!

Free Film School was created in 2020 to address the longstanding underrepresentation of African Nova Scotian and Black Nova Scotian creatives in front of and behind the camera. Oriented to Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour participants, with a particular focus on Black participants, this summer program offers accessible, skills-based training alongside a set-culture framework rooted in respect, safety, and accountability, so participants can learn and create in environments free from racism, tokenizing, harassment, or unconscious bias.

This program is led in partnership with In My Own Voice (iMOVe), Black Above the Line, and the Community Mobile Media Lab (CMML). Main Program Supervisors include Sobaz Benjamin and Solomon Nagler.

Click here to learn more!

Eyelevel is accepting submissions for their annual summer local emerging artist residency program, HEAT WAVES. The residency will span from July 1st to 31st, with the four selected artists working in the shared studio room at 2482 Maynard Street, operated by Wonder'neath and The Blue Building Gallery. This program is designed for local, early-emerging artists with limited or no professional experience in the arts, who face systemic barriers to accessing professional opportunities. Folks unfamiliar with Eyelevel are encouraged to read our mandate before applying

HEAT WAVES is a low-pressure, research-oriented residency. Residents are not expected to finish a project or have exhibition-ready work by the end of the residency, but an idea or starting point is helpful. We welcome experimentation, play, community building, professional development, research, reading, and more.

Read more about what the residency offers and how to apply by clicking here

All applications due by June 8th at 11:59 PM ADT