Soul Catcher: Amanda Strong and Pamela Post's stop-motion short wins at SPARK and Edmonton after its TIFF premiere

Haboolm Ksinaałgat (Soul Catcher), a stop-motion short directed by Amanda Strong with Pamela Post as co-director and screenwriter, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2026. It has since won two awards: the Director's Prize at SPARK Animation, and the Grand Jury Award for Best Short Film in Animation at the Edmonton International Film Festival. Stop Motion Magazine reported both on 4 November. The magazine says the Edmonton award is Oscar-qualifying, and Strong says it qualifies the film for consideration at the 99th Academy Awards.

The film comes from Spotted Fawn Productions, the Indigenous-owned and led Vancouver studio Strong founded in 2010. Its hero is Lu'oo'ya (Echo), a gender-fluid Ts'msyen youth who learns ancestral abilities from an elder. Echo uses a soul catcher amulet to recover the spirit of a totem pole. As a child, Echo's great-great-grandfather had been ordered by a missionary to throw that pole into the Skeena River, the Ksyen. Post based the story on an experience from her Ts'msyen father's childhood. Tantoo Cardinal voices the elder Gyilak'yoo (Robin). Asher Wyatt Maclaren voices Echo, a role inspired by his grandfather. The soundtrack uses traditional Ts'msyen music.

The Calgary International Film Festival lists the film as a 15-minute Canadian short. Its producers are Amanda Strong, Nina Werewka, Hanuse Corlett and Mark Robert Whiting, and the screenwriters are Pamela Post and Bracken Hanuse-Corlett. Terrance Azzuolo is the cinematographer, Strong edited the film and Edo Vanbreemen wrote the music. Soul Catcher follows Inkwo for When the Starving Return (2024), Strong's stop-motion co-production with the National Film Board of Canada, which also features Tantoo Cardinal's voice.