4th World Media Lab

Indigenous Filmmaker Fellowship

4th World Media Lab

May 14 - 17, 2026

We are beyond honored to welcome the 11th Cohort of 4th World Media Lab Fellows, a constellation of deeply creative, community-rooted Indigenous artists living across Turtle Island and Pasifika, whose work reflects both rigor and heart.

This year, a central theme will be outreach, impact, and distribution at a time when everything feels newly in flux. Traditional pathways are shifting, and old gatekeepers are losing relevance. In their place, community-centered frameworks are emerging with models grounded in relationship, reciprocity, and narrative sovereignty.

Together we will explore how stories move not only across screens, but across communities, across borders, across tribal nations and across generations. We will examine what it means to build impact strategies that are accountable to the people most reflected on screen. We will imagine distribution models that prioritize care over extraction and long-term cultural shifts over short-term wins. In a rapidly changing media landscape, this cohort will not simply adapt to new frameworks, they will help shape them.

Cohort 11 4th World Media Lab fellowship activities take place February 2026 through October 2026 at three film festivals: Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and Camden International Film Festival. 4th World Media Lab was founded by Pacific Northwest filmmaker Tracy Rector and is guided by 4th World Media, a global organization supporting Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Queer, Trans and other historically marginalized creatives.

We are grateful to our continued funding partners: ITVS, Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), Perspective Fund and Color Congress.

Noelani Kanuha Auguston

Noelani Kanuha Auguston | (Nooksack | Shxwha:y | Kanaka) | Coast Salish Territory

Noelani is a member of Shx̌whá:y Village, with Nooksack and Hawaiian heritage. A wife and mother of two young boys, she and her husband are raising their family in their homelands along the Nooksack River. She earned her BA from the University of Washington and, guided by a deep love of storytelling, went on to receive her MFA in Creative Writing with a screenwriting focus from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Noelani currently writes and produces for Children of the Setting Sun Productions. Her work is rooted in an authentic Indigenous worldview, with a particular focus on the peoples of the Salish Sea. She is driven by a commitment to creating hopeful, transformative representations of Native life, especially for youth, offering characters and stories that reflect strength, possibility, and self-recognition.

Banchi Hanuse | Nuxalk Nation | British Columbia

Banchi Hanuse is a co-founder of Nuxalk Radio and works in film and radio. She is well known for her documentary shorts and in the last few years directed her first feature documentary Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun in 2023 and most recently Banchi premiered her second feature film Ceremony at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival, garnering the Documentary Spotlight Audience Award.

Montana Cypress

Montana Cypress | Miccosukee | California

Montana Cypress is a Los Angeles based playwright, filmmaker and actor. Originally from the Miccosukee Tribe located in South Florida, he has studied acting at New York Film Academy, British Academy Dramatic Acting and UCLA’s Professional Acting Program. He is a three-time winner of the Von Marie Atchley Excellence in Playwriting Award, winner of Best Native American Directed Short at Phoenix Film Festival, had a full-length comedy stage play “A Christmas In Ochopee” premiere in Minneapolis produced by New Native Theatre and his documentary about alligator wrestling can be viewed on PBS North’s YouTube channel titled, “The Art of Gator Wrestling”. Montana recently played Chief Bromden in the stage adaptation One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest at the Gainesville Playhouse. He can also be seen in the Angel Studios upcoming film Young Washington set to release in theaters July 3, 2026.

Lokotah Sanborn

Lokotah Sanborn | Penobscot Descendant | Maine

Lokotah Sanborn is an interdisciplinary artist from the Penobscot Nation, raised near Old Town, Maine and now based in Portland. Grounded in historical analysis and shaped by his work in community organizing for land return, cultural continuity, and Indigenous sovereignty, his practice spans painting, collage, photography, video, audio, and archival materials. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States. Drawing on his role as a historical researcher and organizer, Sanborn explores the political and socio-economic contradictions of the material world, foregrounding hope, resistance, and the ongoing pursuit of liberation for Indigenous and colonized peoples. His recent short screening at film festivals now, Otherworld (2025), is a poetic short documentary that explores Abenaki ancestral memory, Indigenous resistance, and the impacts of colonialism.

Quannah ChasingHorse

Quannah ChasingHorse | Hän Gwich’in/Oglala Lakota | Turtle Island

Quannah ChasingHorse (she/they) is a Han Gwich’in and Sicangu/Oglala Lakota land protector and fashion model from Eagle Village, Alaska and the tribes of South Dakota. Quannah is a fourth-generation land protector, her deep connection to her homelands and her people’s way of life is her grounding and guiding force as a land and water protector. She gained prominence through a 2020 Calvin Klein campaign and has since worked with the top global fashion houses, won countless awards, stared in Reservation Dogs, Thin Places, and has graced the covers of numerous magazines from Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. Quannah's short film Walking Two Worlds won awards and streams on The North Face channels. With all of Quannah's accomplishments, her most important work is using her platform to uphold and uplift her Indigenous values and peoples.

2024: BRUCE THOMAS MILLER (Anishinaabe, Matachewan First Nation) | CASS GARDINER (Anishinaabe Algonquin, Kebaowek First Nation) | KEISHA ERWIN (Woodland Cree, Lac La Ronge Indian Band) | NICOLLE L. GONZALES (ARTHUN) (Diné, Navajo Nation) | SISA QUISPE (Quechua Aymara) | VICTORIA CHEYENNE (Aymara, El Alto Bolivia, Tsétsêhéstâhese, Northern Cheyenne)

2021–22: AJUAWAK KAPASHESIT (White Earth Ojibwe descendant Waskaganish Cree Enrolled member) | BRIT HENSEL (Cherokee Nation) | ERIN LAU (Native Hawaiian) | JARED LANK (Mi’kmaq Acadia First Nation) | LUCÍA ORTEGA TOLEDO (Zapotec [from Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico]) | MORNINGSTAR ANGELINE (Navajo, Chippewa Cree, Blackfeet, Shoshone, Latinx) | THEOLA ROSS (Cree Treaty 5, Pimicikamak Cree Nation-Cross Lake)

2016: IMMERSIVE MEDIA SUMMIT