4th World Media Lab

May 14 - 19, 2025

The 4th World Media Lab is a year-long traveling fellowship for emerging and mid-career Indigenous filmmakers. Rooted in cultural and community care, the fellowship provides opportunities to develop filmmaking skills and networks through festival participation, hands-on training, master classes, workshopping projects in development, pitching activities, and meetings with funders and other industry decision-makers.

Cohort 10 fellowship activities take place February 2025 through October 2025 at three film festivals: Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), and the Camden International Film Festival. 4th World Media Lab was founded by Indigenous Showcase and Pacific Northwest filmmaker Tracy Rector and is guided by 4th World Media, a global organization supporting Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Trans, and other historically marginalized creatives.

Kekama Amona

Kekama Amona
Kanaka ʻŌiwi

Scott W. Kekama Amona is an accomplished Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) director, producer, and writer, who transitioned from a career in education to storytelling. His work has garnered him notable accolades, including being a fellow at the Sundance Native Shorts Lab and the inaugural IllumiNative + Netflix Indigenous Producers Program. In 2024, he was honored as a NATIVe Stand recipient. Kekama is also one of eight Native Hawaiian writer-directors selected for the inaugural Makawalu feature film project, a collaboration with the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival (HIFF) alongside esteemed producers Sarah S. Kim, Anderson Le, John Cheng (3AD Media), and Daniel Dae Kim, with production set to commence in 2025. His short film, E Malama Pono, Willy Boy (EMPWB), premiered at the 2022 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and has since earned several audience awards at both HIFF and Māoriland Film Festivals. Recently, he served as associate producer on Alika Tengan’s Molokaʻi Bound (2024) and contributed as an advisor for an upcoming episode of a WGBH animated series focused on Indigenous narratives, slated for release in 2025. Currently, Kekama is in script development for his first feature film, titled Keke, which he is co-writing with his partner. A lifelong surfer and passionate activist, he is based in Honolulu, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.

Katsitsionni Fox

Katsitsionni Fox
Haudenosaunee/Mohawk

Katsitsionni Fox is an artist, filmmaker, and educator from the Mohawk Territory of Akwesasne. Her films highlight Indigenous women who are stepping into their power. Her award-winning documentary films include: Ohero:kon - Under the Husk (2016) and Without a Whisper - Konnon:kwe (2020). She directed Indigenous Women’s Voices Series (2020), which focused on healing and empowerment of Native women. Katsitsionni was a 2021 Nia Tero Storytelling Fellow. She directed the film Tentsitewahkwe (2024) for the Reciprocity Project Season 2. Katsitsionni was a mentee for the PBS Ignite Mentorship for Diverse Voices in 2023-24. Her most recent film is Kanenon:we - Original Seeds (2023), a documentary following Indigenous women reclaiming their ancient role as seed keepers, regenerating, protecting, and rematriating sacred and endangered heirloom seeds for the future generations.

James Johnson III

James Johnson III
Koyukon Athabaskan

James Johnson IlI (Koyukon Athabaskan) is from Fairbanks, Alaska, with roots in the Rampart and Kokrines villages. He is a filmmaker focused on telling narrative and documentary stories centered on climate justice, language, and traditional ways of life. He is a co-founder of the indigenous filmmaking company Deenaadai Productions LLC. James spent several years as an Indigenous evaluator before transitioning into filmmaking. He holds a certificate in Rural Human Services and BA in Sociology, both from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is a current participant in the Alaska Native Filmmakers Intensive, an ongoing project through Native Movement and UAF Film & Theatre. Over the past several years, James has served as a primary editor on Diiyeghan Naii Taii Tr'eedaa (2021) and as DP and editor on Gath & Kiyh (2024), a short film featuring world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. James continues to build on his filmmaking skill sets while staying passionate about the work and impact his projects have on uplifting Indigenous stories.

Jules Arita Koostachin

Jules Arita Koostachin
Attawapiskat

Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin (Attawapiskat) is an award-winning filmmaker, mother, writer, performance artist, and academic. With her background in community work, social justice themes emerge in her films alongside bravery, healing, connection, and humour. Jules honours her Cree-speaking grandparents who raised her, and her mother, a residential school survivor/warrior. Relying on a creative eye, keen mind, and strong heart, Jules’ accomplishments include raising four sons while pursuing academics and artistry. Graduating from Concordia University’s Theatre program, Jules went on to Ryerson University’s Documentary Media master’s program, receiving early recognition with an Award of Distinction and an Academic Gold Medal for her thesis documentary film, Remembering Inninimowin (2010). Jules went on to do her PhD in Indigenous documentary and protocols and processes, through the Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice program at the University of British Columbia. Jules is represented by The Characters Talent (acting) and Lucas Talent (writing, directing).

Tiare Ribeaux

Tiare Ribeaux
Kānaka ‘Ōiwi

Tiare Ribeaux is a Kānaka ‘Ōiwi filmmaker, artist, and creative producer based in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Her films disrupt conventional storytelling methods by employing magical realist explorations of spirituality, labor, and the environment to critique both social and ecological imbalances. Her work uses components of speculative fiction and fantasy to reimagine both our present realities and future trajectories of healing, queerness, lineage, and belonging. Ribeaux’s work traverses between the mundane and dreamworlds—creating stories around transformation and how our bodies are inextricably linked to land and water systems. She integrates immersion within community, personal/ancestral narratives, and Hawaiian cosmology into her films.

Tiare has received numerous awards and grants for her artistic leadership including the Creative Capital Award, the NDN Radical Imagination Grant, the Native Lab Fellowship and Indigenous Film Fund from Sundance, two New and Experimental Works Grants from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Building Demand for the Arts Grant from the Doris Duke Foundation, the Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund from the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the Center for Cultural Innovation, among others. She has given talks at conferences and universities including a keynote at ISEA 2024 Brisbane and guest lectures at Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, UH Manoa, RPI, and others. She served as Artistic Director at B4BEL4B Gallery for 8 years, curated and produced various media arts and performance festivals including the Soundwave Biennial and the Codame Festival, and taught international media arts workshops in Kyiv, Ukraine, (2018) as part of the American Arts Incubator and Ōtepoti, Aotearoa, (2023) as part of Leonardo’s Cultural Impact Lab.

Steph Viere

Steph Viere
Diné/Salvadoran

Steph Viera (they/them), is Diné and Salvadorian born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Steph is a writer, organizer, and storyteller with a deep commitment to aid in the intentional storytelling of Indigenous people behind the camera, highlighting the reconnecting, multi-racial, queer, and urban Indigenous communities. In addition to their role at NDN Collective, they have completed several competitive programs and certificates dedicated to the growing need for Indigenous creatives and filmmakers, such as the Production Assistant Certification Program for BIPOC Storytellers with Justice for My Sister and the Warner Media Access Early Career Bootcamp in partnership with Illuminative. Steph was also recently named Resident Facilitator for the LGBTQ and Two Spirit Talking Circle with International Indigenous Youth Council, Los Angeles, for 2023. They hold a bachelor’s degree in Film, Television, and Media from California State University, Dominguez Hills, where they studied screenwriting, digital media production, and media representation. Steph remains steadfast in the pursuit of justice for all people and the planet.

Past Indigenous Filmmaker Fellows:

2024: BRUCE THOMAS MILLER (Anishinaabe, Matachewan First Nation) | CASS GARDINER (Anishinaabe Algonquin, Kebaowek First Nation) | KEISHA ERWIN (Woodland Cree, Lac La Ronge Indian Band) | NICOLLE L. GONZALES (ARTHUN) (Diné, Navajo Nation) | SISA QUISPE (Quechua Aymara) | VICTORIA CHEYENNE (Aymara, El Alto Bolivia, Tsétsêhéstâhese, Northern Cheyenne)

2021–22: AJUAWAK KAPASHESIT (White Earth Ojibwe descendant Waskaganish Cree Enrolled member) | BRIT HENSEL (Cherokee Nation) | ERIN LAU (Native Hawaiian) | JARED LANK (Mi’kmaq Acadia First Nation) | LUCÍA ORTEGA TOLEDO (Zapotec [from Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico]) | MORNINGSTAR ANGELINE (Navajo, Chippewa Cree, Blackfeet, Shoshone, Latinx) | THEOLA ROSS (Cree Treaty 5, Pimicikamak Cree Nation-Cross Lake)

2016: IMMERSIVE MEDIA SUMMIT