Rueben Martell

Born November 3rd, 1976 and raised in Waterhen Lake First Nation in Northern Saskatchewan, Rueben Martell was enamored with the oral tradition of storytelling. Having heard Cree tall tales from his grandmother from a young age, his imagination pushed him to make the images more physically represented in a visual media. His first experience came as an extra in a CBC movie “Revenge of the Land”. The experience changed his opinion on the industry, where he wanted to be behind the camera. Starting as a production assistant for Seventh Generation (1999,2000) for two seasons. After working with Big Soul Productions, they pushed him from production assistant to 1st assistant trainee for Season 1 (2003) of “Moccasin Flats”, then 3rd AD for Season 2 (2004). Rueben was asked to teach aboriginal youth the basics of film making. Detour Youth centre (2007) and University of Saskatchewan’s Aboriginal Peoples Program (2008). Madee the jump to Directors Observer on “Rabbit Fall” (2007) and “Corner Gas” (2008). Between 2009 and 2015, he took a step back to raise his two sons. He took work as a pipeline supervisor and as a videographer for Land claim depositions. In between time, he wrote screenplays to keep the creative side alive. He developed one based on the life of Dwayne Jocko, a known cigarette smuggler during the Oka situation entitled “Jocko Road”. He also directed the music video for George Leach’s Juno award winning song “Let it go”. As of January 2020, he has finished principal photography on his first feature film “Don’t say its name” for Chaos Films and has been presold to Super Channel Canada. Currently developing a tv series “RedWater”, a feature film script “A life less empty” and “Tied” for Raven Banner.