Ruthless Souls
Nominated for Best Director
Madison Thomas, Director
Madison Thomas is a filmmaker from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Growing up, she emerged as a natural storyteller and artist at a young age. Her work reflects her mixed cultural roots, Ojibwe, Saulteax, Russian and Ukrainian. Thomas also draws inspiration from experiences growing up in the inner city and has committed herself to diverse representation in her films.
Thomas received her Bachelor of Arts majoring in Filmmaking from the University of Winnipeg in 2012. In 2011 she was accepted into Prague Film School’s summer intensive program. Thomas was the first Canadian to be accepted in five years and the first Canadian Indigenous person to ever be accepted to the school. In 2014 one of Thomas’s first short films “Out of Reach” launched her onto the national stage when it was selected as a finalist on CBC’s Short Film Faceoff. Thomas was one of the youngest participants to appear on the show and the jury applauded the film’s artistic bravery.
Thomas is the co-owner of Prairie Kid Productions. The collective have produced a dozen shorts which have enjoyed festival success worldwide. Thomas also works as a Writer, Director and Editor for several web series including Rezolution Picture’s “Working It Out Together” and Manito Ahbee/Moving Future Production Inc’s “Orange Daisy Project.”
Thomas’s own dramatic web-series “The Colour of Scar Tissue” was the winner of the 2017 Imaginative/APTN Web-Series Pitch Competition and will be available on APTN in fall 2018. The series follows three mixed Indigenous sisters as they move from rural Manitoba to Winnipeg’s often turbulent North End. In 2016 Thomas was accepted into ImagineNative film festival’s inaugural Director’s Master Class. At the festival that year Thomas also received The Ellen Monague Award for Best Youth Talent Special Mention for her short film “Exposed Nerves” which explores living with Bi-Polar disorder through contemporary dance, the film is now available to view as part of CBC Short Docs.
Thomas has also worked for the past three seasons as an Editor and Director for the CBC & APTN series “Taken” produced by Eagle Vision Productions which shares the true stories of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous woman. Thomas is alumni of the prestigious Women in the Director’s Chair Story and Leadership Program where she began development on her sci-fi feature film “Last Call.” The film’s script was a runner up in the Canadian wide writing contest “From the Dark Side” in 2015. At the 2017 Whistler Film Festival Thomas was also selected for the Aboriginal Film Fellowship with her short sci-fi “Starbound.” Thomas believes that giving back to the community is a fundamental part of her responsibility as an artist. She often teaches film to inner city and low income youth. In 2016 she was selected as a Tedx Winnipeg speaker and her talk “Arts in the Hood” focused on her journey as an artist and her work as a mentor. This spring her documentary “Fourth Period Burnout” will premiere as part of CBC Short Docs. The doc was co-written and directed by Thomas and several youth filmmakers and it explores Burnout and Stress in High-school.