Creators Who Inspire: Meet Colin Van Loon
Filmmaker Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon) lives for urban legends, mythical monsters, and ghostly characters.
As the producer of the APTN short-form digital series Tales from the Rez, it’s his job to bring the scares and drama while honouring his culture.
The six-episode series, created by Trevor Soloway, sees elder Uncle Randalf recounting strange tales from Blackfoot folklore.
“We have so many stories that are famous in our communities,” says Van Loon, who is Blackfoot and Dutch, and hails from the Piikani Nation. “It was really about taking these stories, urban legends that happened to somebody in the community, or a friend of a friend, and setting them in a dramatic or horror narrative.”
Van Loon’s love of horror started early. “Our Tales from the Rez has a kinship, or shared relationship, with Tales from the Crypt. I remember watching the TV show, and I remember being at my grandma’s house watching the movie, and I was way too young for that. I’m a big fan of Nightmare on Elm Street, and Candyman. I’ll probably never recover from that,” he says with a laugh.
Tales from the Rez showcases a cast of Indigenous actors and crew, and Van Loon is proud the series serves as a training ground for young talent.
“The training and mentorship aspect is important to us, but we’re also seeking to create a high bar in terms of quality for the project. Because Indigenous media is often underfunded, and people are stuck in the trap of being emerging, we wanted to set a high bar for what we do. I think we are successful.”
Van Loon began his career as an actor, appearing in TV shows like Hank Williams First Nation and Anash and the Legacy of the Sun-Rock. But it didn’t take long to realize that acting wasn’t enough for him.
“I realized that I couldn’t do the things I wanted to with acting, so I went back to school. I took the production program at Simon Fraser University, and learned I love making things.”
Van Loon is the founder of Blackfoot Nation Films, and he made a splash at the 2024 Canadian Screen Awards, taking home the prize for the Best (Non-Fiction) Immersive Experience for writing and directing the National Film Board (NFB) project This is Not a Ceremony.
The CMF is providing funding for the second season of Tales from the Rez, and Van Loon believes the series has legs to continue past its sophomore season.
“I think we’ll never run out of stories,” he says. “I’ve been out with friends at a party or around a campfire and somebody tells a story and it really becomes infectious. You know, everybody has a story. We wanted to do two seasons set in the Blackfoot Confederacy, but after that we hope 13 to go to other communities with other filmmakers and tell their stories. I think there’s a wealth of these stories and so many different mythological characters that belong to a particular community that we can explore.”
