A filmmaker and artist of Cree/Métis and European ancestry, Loretta Todd was one of the first Indigenous women to pursue film studies at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University. Employing a distinctive approach to documentary cinema, she has directed award-winning films such as The Learning Path (1991), Hands of History (1994), Forgotten Warriors (1997)and The People Go On (2003). She has also created video installations for Vancouver's Museum of Anthropology and other gallery venues. The recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship and a former participant in the Sundance Institute’s Scriptwriters Lab, Todd has received lifetime achievement awards from imagineNATIVE and the Taos Talking Pictures Festival.

Loretta Sarah Todd is a visionary leader in Indigenous media, considered a true artist with entrepreneurial energy and cultural knowledge. Her first feature, Monkey Beach, based on the novel by Eden Robinson, launched to strong audience and critical response, screening at TIFF (Industry Selects) and sweeping the Drama awards at the American Indian Film Festival and Red Nation Film Festival, including Best Film and Best Director. Monkey Beach was the #1 Canadian film for 4 weeks at the box office. Ms. Todd has directed over 100 projects including award-winning documentaries (Forgotten Warriors, Hands of History, Today is a Good Day), apps, digital media, games and animation. Ms. Todd also creates, produces and showruns series including children’s and youth series, like Nehiyawetan, Coyote Science and Fierce Girls, and sci-fi martial arts mash-up (Skye and Chang). She helps develop Indigenous media, providing opportunities for Indigenous cast, crew and creative, building spaces for Indigenous production and writing influential scholarly essays. Ms. Todd was instrumental in the formation of the Aboriginal Arts Centre at the Banff Centre. Recently, she created the IM4 Media Lab, an Indigenous XR Lab, where she is the Creative Director. Trailblazing in the development of immersive technologies, Ms. Todd is currently a Fellow to the Inaugural Indigenous Delegation to the Co-Creation Lab at MIT, sponsored by the Indigenous Screen Office. And she is on the Advisory Board to the ONX Studio, a NYC based immersive technology art lab sponsored by the Onassis Foundation and the NEW MUSEUM, plus she was recently invited to be on the board of the Kaleidoscope Immersive Fund and the jury for the latest SIGGRAPH Conference. A respected speaker, she’s presented at VIFFImmersed, The Global AR/VR Summit, Kidscreen, Museum of Modern Art – as well the Aboriginal International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, at the United Nations – to name a few. Ms. Todd is an original. She ran-away at 13, was homeless and became a teen mother – which changed her life. She went back to school and worked in bakeries, construction, restaurants – to stay away from social workers who might take her daughter. Still she managed to become a writer, activist, entrepreneur and an award-winning filmmaker. She is a devotee of world cinema, sci-fi, obscure music, elegant fashion, forests, gardens and Paris – and is an instigator of fusion Indigenous cultural expression. She is also knowledgeable about her culture – creating and producing an award-winning children’s series that teaches kids to speak Cree, her father’s first language, as well as creating one of the first Cree language apps. Her films have screened at the Sundance Festival, Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), American Indian Film Festival (San Francisco), Yamagata Film Festival, ImagineNative, and the Museum of Modern Art, to name just a few. She has received many prestigious honours and awards, including a Rockefeller Fellowship to New York University, attendance to the Sundance Scriptwriter’s Lab, Special Jury Citation (TIFF), Mayor’s Award for Media Arts (City of Vancouver) and the recent Women of Excellence Award, from the United Nation’s WEF Women’s Economic Forum. Ms. Todd is Cree/Metis, from St. Paul des Metis, White Fish Lake First Nation and Turtle Mountain Chippewa in North Dakota.

Loretta Sarah Todd is a visionary leader in Indigenous media, an artist with entrepreneurial energy and cultural knowledge. Ms. Todd creates space for Indigenous production and storytelling, including the IM4 Media Lab, an Indigenous XR Lab, where she is the Creative Director. Ms. Todd is a director of over 100 projects including award-winning documentaries, and she's created apps, digital media, games and animation. Ms. Todd creates, produces and show-runs award-winning series, especially for children and youth, including Nehiyawetan, Coyote Science, Fierce Girls, and Skye and Chang, a sci-fi martial arts mash-up. Monkey Beach, her first feature, from the novel by Eden Robinson, launched to strong audience and critical response, screening at TIFF, ImagineNative, opening VIFF, sweeping the drama awards at the American Indian Film Festival, was honoured with 4 awards at Red Nation Festival and was the #1 Canadian film at the box office for 4 weeks. Monkey Beach has screened in Korea, India, Italy, Germany, England, Lithuania, Netherlands, Scotland and throughout the US and Canada. She is a Fellow with the Indigenous Screen Office and Co-Creation Lab at MIT Initiative and on the Advisory Board to the ONX Studio. A respected speaker, she's presented at VIFFImmersed, The Global AR/VR Summit, Kidscreen, MOMA and at the UN on Aboriginal International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. And she writes influential scholarly essays, including Aboriginal Narratives in Cyberspace. Her many honours include a Rockefeller Fellowship to NYU, Sundance Scriptwriter’s Lab, Mayor's Award for Media Arts (Vancouver), Women in Film and Video Innovator Award and Women of Excellence: United Nation's Women's Economic Forum. Writing critical and cultural art theory, Ms. Todd published such essays as: Aboriginal Narratives in Cyberspace, About the Future, in Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, International Exhibition of Contemporary Indigenous Art and A Few Days in December in Venice, published in Vision, Space and Desire – Global Perspectives and Cultural Hybridity, eds./curators Paul Chaat Smith, Gerald McMaster, National Museum of the American Indian. Her essays appear in many publications from MIT Press to UBC Press. Ms. Todd is Cree/Metis - St. Paul des Metis, White Fish Lake First Nation, Red River Metis.

Loretta Sarah Todd Female. Cree. Metis. White. Writes (been to Sundance Writer's Lab). Directs (many films, lots of festivals). Thinks (essays full of tersely cogent remarks or flamboyantly theoretical analysis). Produces (she’s experienced the labyrinth). Challenges herself and others and makes things happen. And yes, she has many awards and accolades. Known for lyrical, expressionistic imagery combined with strong storytelling skills, Todd tells truths that are haunting, funny and real.