Blackfeet filmmakers Ivan and Ivy MacDonald receive 2025 Frank Blythe Award

Vision Maker Media (VMM) has named Blackfeet Nation siblings Ivan and Ivy MacDonald as recipients of the 2025 Frank Blythe Award for Media Excellence, recognizing their contributions to Indigenous storytelling and their commitment to supporting Native filmmakers.

The annual award, named in honour of Vision Maker Media founder Frank Blythe, celebrates individuals or organisations that expand opportunities in Indigenous media and empower Native American and Alaska Native creators. The MacDonalds will receive a $2,000 professional development grant.

The siblings first came to VMM’s attention in 2023, when Ivy MacDonald was selected for the organisation’s Creative Shorts Fellowship. Her short film Buffalo Spirit follows a young Blackfeet woman who reconnects with traditional knowledge and finds healing while caring for buffalo on her aunt’s ranch.

Ivan MacDonald is an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and an inaugural fellow of the Netflix and IllumiNative Producers Fellowship. His work has also been supported by the Hulu and Firelight Kindling Fund, and he was named the 2024 Mark Silverman honoree for the Sundance Producing Lab.

During the Creative Shorts Fellowship, the siblings worked with mentor Daniel Glick to complete Buffalo Spirit. The project later evolved into Bring Them Home/Aiskótáhkapiyaaya, a feature documentary chronicling efforts by the Blackfoot Confederacy to restore wild buffalo to the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Narrated by Academy Award–nominated actor Lily Gladstone, the film won the Big Sky Award at the 2024 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and premiered on public television in November 2025.

Following the fellowship, the MacDonalds have continued to give back to their community by training emerging Indigenous filmmakers through Vision Maker Media’s Native Youth Media Project.

Vision Maker Media president and CEO Francene Blythe-Lewis, daughter of Frank Blythe, said the award reflects her father’s long-held vision for the organisation.

“My father was always a visionary, and before he died, he emphasized his hope that VMM would support and fund young filmmakers,” Blythe-Lewis said. “Even as we face the loss of funding following the closure of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, we remain committed to supporting films made by Native filmmakers for the benefit of all Americans. I am thrilled to honour Ivy and Ivan MacDonald’s achievements with the 2025 Frank Blythe Award for Media Excellence, and I hope this recognition inspires others.”

Vision Maker Media has been a leading source of media by and about Native Americans since 1976.