Lisa Jackson

With a background in documentary, award-winning filmmaker Lisa Jackson expanded into fiction with Savage, which won a 2010 Genie for best short film. Named one of Playback Magazine’s 10 to Watch in 2012, Lisa Jackson’s genre-blending films include current affairs, animation, and a musical. Her work has played at festivals internationally including SXSW, Berlinale, London BFI, and Margaret Mead, and aired on many networks in Canada.

In 2015, she directed the drama sequences for the 8-part docudrama series 1491: The Untold Story of the Americas Before Columbus, based on the best-selling book by Charles C. Mann. She is currently directing Osgoode Hall Law School’s Gladue Video Project—creating video profiles of offenders for use in the sentencing process—as well as directing a documentary VR project on The Highway of Tears for CBC’s “The Current.”

In 2012 the ReelWorld Festival named her a Trailblazer, and her work is used extensively in educational and community settings. The thesis project for her current MFA in Film Directing at York University is an audiovisual installation exploring the power of indigenous languages.