Through support from Inspirit Foundation, Hot Docs has launched a new year-round Podcast Development Lab serving BIPOC creators based in Canada.
The lab offers five fellowships for emerging BIPOC storytellers with non-fiction series ideas in early development. Fellows will have the opportunity to develop their podcast ideas and create a proof-of-concept sample that will help take their work to the next level. Each project will also receive a $1,000 creator grant to support the development of their work.
Read the full announcement of candidates here. And check out more media coverage in the Podcast Business Journal, Realscreen, and Playback.
2021 Fellows
Below are the five non-fiction audio projects that will be developed from July to September 2021, through the Podcast Development Lab:
20 Red Flags
Nicole Doucette & Lucas Kavanagh (Vancouver)
The story of Bre-X, a small Canadian mining company that pulled off the world’s biggest gold mining fraud, costing investors billions. Over 20 years later, this podcast plans to uncover the mystery of who did it, and why.
Exceptionalisn’t
Melissa Haughton (Toronto)
A podcast that steps outside of our definitions of Black excellence and sitting with the messy, challenging and joyful stories that exist on the other side.
Made Up Words
Isabelle Ruiz De La Orden (Montréal)
What has to be forgotten, hidden, or invented, to have a liberated Canadian childhood? This podcast examines Canadian summer camps and their reliance on Indigenous dispossession and exploitation to foster meaningful nature and land-bound experiences for largely non-Indigenous children. The creator’s years at Quebec’s oldest summer camp are revisited in the context of their Kayen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) identity, and the smaller scale cultural and social dispossession they, and many Indigenous people, must reckon with.
Money No Get Enemy
Oshamimi Mayaki & Alexandra Sproule (Toronto)
From the middle ages, caravans crossed the desert and ships crossed the seas to spend money, lots of it, at West Africa’s greatest markets. This is the story of that money, in all its forms, and what happened to all that wealth.
Stories My Grandmother Never Told Me
Sarena Parmar (Toronto)
A podcast that uncovers the unconventional figures and untold histories of the Sikh-Canadian community. Grounded by multigenerational conversations between Sikh elders and the next generation, this six-part series illuminates how these hidden stories from the past impact our sense of identity today, as guests and audiences unfold the legacy of Sikh-Canadians in real-time.
Read the full announcement of candidates here.
