Here are the 4 selected Canadian projects for the upcoming Docs-In-Progress – Canadian Showcase at the Marché du Film, the Cannes Film Festival’s international industry market:
Skin of the Sky - Directed and produced by Andrea Bussmann
Synopsis:
Skin of the Sky is a poetic essay film that lingers in the contested spaces of the Mexican-American borderlands, where human and non-human lives are entangled in systems of control, disappearance, and survival. Told through fragments, the film traces the often-invisible journeys of horses conscripted into labor, smuggling, spectacle, and abandonment—beings caught in the same violent economies that shape human existence at the border. Moving between clandestine racetracks, slaughterhouses, and desert patrols, the film reframes the border as a shifting threshold—shaped by power yet full of shadows: untold histories, silenced bodies, and echoes of resistance.
― Andrea Bussmann was born in Toronto, Canada. She holds an MA in Social Anthropology and an MFA in Film Production. After completing her degrees, she directed He Whose Face Gives No Light. In 2016, she co-directed Tales of Two Who Dreamt, which premiered at the Berlinale Forum and won Best Documentary at the Festival International de Film de Femmes in 2017. Her feature Fausto premiered in 2018 at the Locarno International Film Festival and won Best Latin American Feature at Mar del Plata International Film Festival. That same year, she was awarded the Discovery Award by the Directors Guild of Canada.
We Shall Eat When the River is Full - Directed and produced by Banchi Hanuse
Co-writer: Jessica Mayhew
Synopsis:
At Nuxalk Radio, a rinky-dink, ramshackled station on the edge of the world, an inquiry into the disappearance of their sacred fish unearths a deeper truth about their ancestors who vanished before them - unraveling a chilling story buried in Canada’s past.
― Banchi Hanuse is a producer/director and co-founder of the Nuxalk Radio, a station dedicated to keeping the Nuxalk language alive. She directed the short documentaries Cry Rock (2010) and Nuxalk Radio (2020), as well as the feature-length Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun (2023). She continues to amplify Indigenous stories and advocate for cultural and environmental stewardship.
― Jessica Mayhew holds a law degree and a Bachelor of Performing Arts. She combines her legal education with a passion for storytelling to create a unique understanding of issues affecting Indigenous Peoples. She is committed to telling real histories, dispelling myths, and highlighting Indigenous voices through her work.
Concrete Turned to Sand - Directed and produced by Jessica Johnson et Ryan Ermacora
Synopsis:
Following a collective of oyster farmers on Cortes Island, British Columbia, Concrete Turned to Sand traces the changing intertidal zone as it endures the effects of ocean warming and acidification. Exploring modes of perception and scale, the film reveals the transforming landscape and the intertwined livelihoods within it.
― Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora are award-winning filmmakers based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Their films investigate the ways in which humans have engraved themselves into the biosphere. Formally, their work is defined by a structural approach to filmmaking, engaging with the optics of cinema while illustrating the experience of labour in dialogue with landscape. Their work has screened at festivals and cinemas including Cinéma du réel, The Walker Art Center, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Open City Documentary Festival, Kassel Dokfest and VIFF.
The Production of the World - Directed and produced by Brett Story
Synopsis:
The Production of the World is an archival film about artists and activists in the 1950s caught up in the cultural Cold War. At once a spy thriller about the CIA infiltration of the art world, and a fascinating biography of the writer most responsible for helping us decode images, John Berger, The Production of the World offers a timely archival investigation into the battlegrounds of culture. The enigmatic and prolific John Berger is a guide to this period, raising the film’s most probing and contested question: what is the value of art in turbulent political times?
― Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer whose work pushes the formal boundaries of political cinema. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at Sundance, CPH:DOX, and SXSW. She is the director of the feature films Union (with Steve Maing), which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, The Prison In Twelve Landscapes and The Hottest August, and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. She was nominated for the Cinema Eye Award for Best Director in both 2020 and 2025, and is a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Award, a Sundance Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
The entire Forum RIDM team congratulates them!
Forum RIDM in partnership with Telefilm Canada
