Hello and welcome. My name is Berkley Brady, and Nika Productions Inc. is the corporate entity for my work in film and television. I’m a producer, DGC director and writer based in Calgary, Alberta. I’m inspired by cinematic and art history, hip-hop and the land. When I’m not outside, I want to be watching or making stories on/for all sizes of screens.

A little about myself. I’m Metis on my dad’s side, and mostly-Scottish on my mom’s, which is another way of saying I grew up around storytellers and night owls. One of my earliest memories is of sitting under a restaurant table as my dad told a story to our crowded table. How the red glasses on the table shook from laughter when he delivered his punch-line.

in 1986, I moved to Calgary, a city bordered by the Rocky Mountains and the prairies. It was here that I discovered my teenage passions; books, snowboarding, and flirting with moody boys in baggy pants. Back in the day, I competed in half-pipe, even ranking 3rd in my province in ‘94.

Snowboarding has a physicality, flow, and rhythm that I bring to my work as a director. For example, each turn on a snowboard follows the curve-like mathematics of music. Bringing this understanding of musicality and movement guides my intuitive approach to working with actors and helps keep my camera work fluid.

After graduating university, I worked as an assistant for documentary and experimental filmmakers. This included editing docs on the International Criminal Court and potlatch ceremonies; schlepping camera gear across the gruelling West Coast Trail.

These adventures eventually led to a love for narrative filmmaking and a desire to pursue my MFA in film directing at Columbia University in NYC. I lived in the city for 6 years and absorbed it all; dance, the legacy of hip-hop and of course the cinematic culture there.

During my time there, I worked as a Teacher’s Assistant at Barnard and for different production companies as a reader. I also produced an award-winning short that premiered at Sundance. It’s called The Immaculate Reception and it’s about a teenage boy losing his virginity while the Pittsburgh Steelers battled for the super bowl championship in 1972. It premiered at Sundance, which was my first time there.

Following this, I won the Alfred P. Sloan award and was able to make my first short, Blow Out, about a lone geologist fighting her crew on a remote, snow-blown oil rig.

And while I was so inspired by the creativity and ambition of my classmates, employers and the culture of the US, I returned to Canada for love in 2016; I’m now married to my favourite Canadian cinematographer, Ian Lister. I also love working in Canada and last year directed my first two episodes of TV on the soon-to-be-released Secret History of the Wild West. Thanks to funding from Telefilm, I directed my first feature, Dark Nature, in the fall of 2022, which premiered at Fantasia in Montreal.

Currently my sweet spot is in directing horror with a touch of adventure and a satisfying dash of emotion. If a film can make me laugh, scream, and cry? Perfection.

My own desire is to offer guilt-free escapes for anyone watching my films, stories that use genre to address bigger and sometimes-difficult ideas.

Thanks for visiting, and hope you enjoy the site.

-BB