Loretta Todd is a writer, director, and producer. Her credits include award-winning documentaries, such as Forgotten Warriors, Kainayssini Imanistaisiwa: The People Go On, and Hands of History. She also created, produced and directed Tansi! Nehiyawetan, a Cree children’s series on APTN; MyCree, a Cree language learning app (which has had over 20,000 downloads); and Fierce Girls, a webseries and transmedia project for Indigenous girls about Indigenous girl superheroes. And she is the director of the feature film adaptation of Eden Robinson’s novel Monkey Beach, which premieres today at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

She joins us to discuss her relationship with the novel, the choices that went into adapting it for the screen, and what it was like to film with and around Haisla Nation.