Karen Chapman

About

Karen Chapman’s debut feature, Village Keeper premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024. It won Best Feature at the Regent Park Film Festival, GEMFest, Minnesota Film Festival, Arizona International Film Festival, the Roxbury International Film Festival and Ridgefield Independent Film Festival. Chapman was nominated for the Canadian Media Producers Association’s The Kevin Tierney Emerging Producer Award and Best Directorial achievement from the Directors Guild of Canada. Village Keeper was nominated for seven Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Picture and Original Screenplay, and won The John Dunning Award for Best First Feature Film, becoming the first Black woman to receive the honor. The film also screened in three cities across China as part of the Embassy of Canada in China's screening series raising awareness about gender-based violence.

Her Norman Jewison Canadian Film Centre’s thesis film, Measure, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019 and won the International Hollywood Foreign Press and Residency Award at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, as well as CineFilm’s Best Overall Film, and Best Directing in 2020 at the Women in Film and Television + Toronto Showcase. She is also a recipient of Reelworld Film Festival’s Trailblazer Award.

Chapman holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University and is an alumnus of the Norman Jewison Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Lab, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the TIFF Filmmakers’ Lab, Accelerator, Every Story Lab and the Micki Moore Residency program.

Awards

John Dunning Best First Feature Award
Canadian Screen Awards, 2025 · Village Keeper

Festival Grand Prize
Arizona International Film Festival, 2025 · Village Keeper

Best Feature
Gender Equity in Media Festival, 2025 · Village Keeper

Impact Award
Cordillera International Film Festival, 2023 · Quiet Minds Silent Streets