Gregory Coyes is an award-winning filmmaker of Métis/Cree and European descent from St. Albert, Alberta. Over the last 35 years he has created programming for most of the major broadcasters in Canada. His portfolio includes Stories from the 7th Fire, a four-part Cree animation series featuring the designs of Norval Morrisseau, and Live from the Hundred Years Café, a contemporary Indigenous music series which he also hosted. No Turning Back (1996) documented the important work of Canada’s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and How the Fiddle Flows (2002) traces the unique evolution of the Métis musical tradition.
Gregory is currently working on the development of the Slow Media Community, a decolonized approach to cinema that gathers the power of nature to nurture both ourselves and our communities. Slow Media was the subject of his 2018 Masters thesis at UBC. Gregory is currently teaching decolonized filmmaking practices at North Vancouver’s Capilano University where he is the co-ordinator of the Indigenous Digital film program. He is a guitar player and songwriter and feels blessed to be living and working as an uninvited guest in the ancestral and unsurrendered territory of the Squamish and Tsle-Waututh Nations in what is now known as North Vancouver.
Slow Media
Every day, no matter where we are in the world, nature is reaching out to us, whispering
its secrets, and inviting us to step into a deeper understanding and relationship.
All we need to do is slow down. To find one of our favourite spots outside, and then be
still. To look and listen, with our camera as our witness.
And only then do we begin to experience what I refer to as the “real time of Nature.”
This is the basis of Slow Media.
And Slow Media is not a skill, it’s a practice.
A practice of being present with and through your camera.
So if you like being with your camera outside … Slow Media might be for you.
Find your spot.
Slow down.
Really begin to look and listen.
Nature is talking. Telling us all a story …
Find your frame … and hit “record”.
Gift yourself …
And your community.
Slow Media is Decolonized Media.
Some have dubbed it, “yoga for filmmakers”.
Let’s make some Slow Media.
What is your window on the world?
