The fellowship supports storytellers in overcoming initial barriers such as funding, equipment, skills, and knowledge while laying the groundwork for sustainable creative practices and professional film careers.
The films created through this program are transformative, bringing local communities together while fostering intimate conversations, reflections, and generational change.
These works embody cultural resistance and the visionary spirit of the FilmSparks Fellows and their ancestors.
Applications for the FilmSparks Fellowship will reopen in Winter of 2025
2025 FILMSPARKS FELLOWS
Rio Pérez (they/them) is a Venezuelan visual artist and educator raised in Mni Sota Makoce. As an artist, they use photo, video, and collage to tell stories about their family, diasporic experiences, and the simultaneous fragmentation and joy of being a queer Latine. Rio studied Art, Film & Visual Studies at Harvard University, with a focus on contemporary Latine and Latin American visual art. Having worked as an educator at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels, their professional goal is to co-create affirming community art spaces through their practice and increase arts access for BIPOC and queer youth. Rio’s work has been featured in local shows at the Clues Art Gallery, Curiosity Studio, the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery, and Serpentina Arts' Viewfinders/Miradores exhibition. Rio also participated in the 2024 Mamá Papaya StorySeeds Screenwriting Fellowship cohort, where they fell back in love with writing and filmmaking. They are beyond thankful and excited to continue being a part of this community. www.rioperez.com @tremendosolazo
Devin Newby (he/him) is a visual artist based in Minneapolis, MN. He studied physiology and anthropology at the University of Minnesota: Twin Cities, but he has worked in a variety of fields, including live broadcast, broadcast journalism, art, clinical research, non-profit community programming, and healthcare. He credits his curiosity for both his broad fields of experience and artistic vision. As an artist, he uses a mix of oil painting and storytelling through video to process his curiosity and lived experiences, especially those dealing with identity, grief, and struggles with human connection. His artistic vision comes from the same place that his most painful and most cherished memories come from. The goal of his work is to explore the diversity in human emotion and experience, and in doing so, make people feel something that is emotionally genuine and powerful. @devinnewbyart
M. Murray (they/them) is a Caribbean-American, writer-director born and raised in Harlem, NYC, now based in Minneapolis. Their work is driven by a burning desire to use genre filmmaking (thriller, horror, action/adventure, sci-fi) to capture the beauty, complexity, and possibilities of Black life. M is a professional screenwriter, having developed projects with Netflix and FX Networks. They are a former Sundance Ignite Fellow (2015) and Women In Film INSIGHT Fellow (2018). Currently, they are shopping a fun action-thriller feature script based on their coming-of-age experience in NYC, of which they will also direct.
Ajuawak Kapashesit (he/him) is an actor, screenwriter, playwright, and director for stage and screen. His acting credits include Shinaab (Sundance 2017, TIFF 2017) and Shinaab Part II (TIFF 2018, Sundance 2019), and the feature films Indian Horse (TIFF 2017), Once Upon a River (Bentonville Film Festival 2019), and Indian Road Trip (Whistler Film Festival 2020). His television credits include Bad Blood Season 2 (CityTV/Netflix) and Outlander Season 4 (Starz/Sony). His short plays have been performed in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, where he was a finalist at Native Voices at the Autry’s Short Play Festival in 2017. In 2018, he was chosen as an Indigenous Film Opportunity Fellow with the Sundance Film Institute and was a finalist for the Sundance Indigenous Filmmaker’s Fellowship. In 2020, he was a story editor and contributing writer for the sketch comedy show Tallboyz for CBC. His short story, A Fresh Start, was a finalist in the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms short story competition in 2020 and was selected for publication in the anthology Before the Usual Time, published by Latitude 46 that year. He is an alumnus of the CBC Actor's Conservatory at the Canadian Film Centre and was a Mentee in the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation in 2017 and 2018 with Pangaea World Theatre in Minneapolis. Currently, Ajuawak is a Vision Maker Media Shorts Fellow for the short film Seeds that he is co-writing and co-directing with Morningstar Angeline, and a contributing writer for Tallboyz Season 3. He is Anishinaabe, Cree, and Jewish. www.ajuawak.com @ajuawak
For previous years fellows, please refer to our instagram.