Hometown premiere for St. John’s filmmaker Wanda Nolan and her award-winning NFB short documentary The Muse at SJIWFF. Also featured: NFB animated shorts by Amanda Strong and Matea Radic that explore conflict via bold visions.

September 22, 2025 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Audiences can embark on a touching cinematic road trip across Newfoundland at this year’s St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival (SJIWFF), through local filmmaker Wanda Nolan’s National Film Board of Canada (NFB) short documentary The Muse.

It’s the hometown debut for Nolan’s acclaimed film, which was just named Best Atlantic Short Documentary at the Atlantic International Film Festival in Halifax.

Also featured at the festival are the NFB animated shorts Inkwo for When the Starving Return by Amanda Strong (Spotted Fawn Productions/NFB) and Paradaïz by Matea Radic—each exploring conflict and resilience through bold, imaginative visions.

SJIWFF 2025 runs October 21–25.

The Muse by Wanda Nolan (18 min)

• When 74-year-old Robert Tilley agreed to take photographer Ting Ting Chen on a road trip across Newfoundland, neither could have predicted the deep, cross-generational friendship that would blossom between them, nor how Robert’s role in Ting Ting’s art would challenge traditional ideas of the artist-muse relationship. The Muse explores the concepts of aging, memory and identity while demonstrating the power of creative connection.
• Wanda Nolan is a writer, story consultant and filmmaker based in St. John’s. Her credits include the award-winning 2016 NFB animated short, The Mystery of the Secret Room, and the feature screenplay The Magic of Boxer Connors, which was selected for Telefilm’s Inspired Script program.

Inkwo for When the Starving Return by Amanda Strong (Spotted Fawn Productions/NFB, 18 min 27 s)

• Two lifetimes from now the world hangs in the balance. Dove, a young warrior, receives and begins to understand the gifts and burdens of their Inkwo (medicine), in a call to action to fight and protect against the forces of greed and consumption. A stop-motion animated adaptation of the short story “Wheetago War” by award-winning Tlicho Dene storyteller Richard Van Camp. Amanda Strong is a Michif/Red River Métis artist, writer, producer, director, filmmaker and mother based in Sechelt, BC.

Paradaïz by Matea Radic (9 min 28 s)

• Welcome to a place where the houses have holes, tomatoes are ticking time bombs and snails wander the streets in search of a safe space. In her directorial debut, Winnipeg-based artist Matea Radic uses absurdist animation, family photos, a wry sense of humour and her own slippery memories to return to the war-torn city of Sarajevo she fled as a child in the ’90s.

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