Marie Clements

A renowned writer, director and producer whose decorated career has spanned film, TV, radio and live performance, Marie Clements is a Métis/Dene filmmaker and the founder of MCM, a production company specializing in the development, creation and production of innovative works of media that ignite an Indigenous and intercultural reality. Her multi-award-winning films have screened internationally at Cannes, TIFF, MOMA, VIFF, the Whistler Film Festival, the American Indian Film Festival and the imagineNATIVE Film Festival.

Marie’s most recent projects include the NFB documentary feature Lay Down Your Heart and the feature film and five-part, hour-long drama Bones of Crows for CBC, Radio-Canada, and APTN. The feature film version of Bones of Crows premiered at TIFF 2022 and subsequently screened at 35 film festivals across the world, winning 40 awards. It was nominated for five Canadian Screen Awards including Best Screenplay, Best Original Song, Best Makeup and Best Visual Effects. The film was also nominated for a WGC Screenwriting Award and won ten Leo Awards, including Best Feature Film, Best Director, and Best Screenwriting. The film was released theatrically in 2023 and has since become the highest-grossing theatrical release by a female Indigenous filmmaker in Canadian history. The series version was nominated for twelve 2025 Canadian Screen Awards including Best Drama Series, Best Directing and Best Screenplay. Bones of Crows also won the Audience Award Winner for Best International Project at SeriesFest 2023, and was a ratings hit for the CBC on both linear and their streaming service. Marie won a WGC Screenwriting Award in the MOW and Miniseries category for the finale episode ‘To Be Here’, a DGC Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies or Television or Mini-Series, and a Leo Award for Best Direction - Dramatic Series. Marie’s dramatic feature debut, Red Snow, received numerous awards, including Most Popular Canadian Feature at VIFF, Best Canadian Feature at EIFF, Best Achievement in Film at LA Skins Fest in Los Angeles, Best Director at the American Indian Film Festival and Best Production, Best Director, and Best Writer at the Women in Film & TV Festival. Marie’s 2017 feature music documentary The Road Forward, produced by the NFB, premiered at Hot Docs, opened the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, closed the imagineNATIVE Film Festival and received multiple awards for production, directing and screenwriting. The Road Forward has screened at more than 300 venues in North America. 

Aside from her many film credits, nominations and awards, Marie has personally been honoured with nominations from the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild of Canada, and won the DGC Impact Award in 2023. She is a recipient of the WFF Women on Top Award and the WIFTV Spotlight Impact Award, and is a 2019 Telefilm Canada Birks Diamond Tribute to Women in Film recipient.