Name:

Damon D'Oliveira

Title:

Producer Mentor

Biography:

Producer Damon D’Oliveira has been responsible for bringing to screen some of Canada’s more innovative feature films – Poor Boy’s Game, RUDE, Love Come Down, H, Proteus and Lie With Me. Under the umbrella of production companies, Conquering Lion Pictures (with partner Clement Virgo) and Flimshow Inc., D’Oliveira’s films have been distributed internationally and have been selected for festivals around the world including Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Sundance & Rotterdam.

Damon’s most recent feature, Poor Boy’s Game (starring Danny Glover and Rossif Sutherland), premiered as a Special Presentation at the 2007 Berlinale and has been acquired to date in over 35 countries. It was also a Special Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007, and has won best film and audience choice awards at the Atlantic Film Festival and Calgary International Film Festival. In 2005, D’Oliveira’s provocative sexual romance, Lie With Me, sold internationally to over 40 countries after causing a stir at the Toronto International Film Festival and the 2006 Berlin Film Festival.

Damon studied producing at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre where he initiated many short films including Save My Lost Nigga' Soul directed by Virgo which was named Best Short Film in 1993 at Toronto and Chicago Film Festivals and at the 1994 Pan African Film Festival.

Born in Guyana, Damon moved to Toronto, Canada in 1976. After studying Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, he was a student of Sandy Meisner’s at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York City where he also worked for two years at the United Nations. . In 1990, Damon was the winner of both the Chalmers and Dora Mavor Moore Awards for his work in the theatre as a co-writer on the play, “i.d.”

Damon is actively involved in the Canadian film community, sitting on the International Advisory Committee of the Toronto International Film Festival Industry Centre and the Board of Directors of Astral Media’s The Harold Greenberg Fund. He is a past member of the OMDC’s Feature Film Advisory Committee and a founding member of the Producers Round Table of Ontario, as well as having chaired the boards and juries of various Canadian Arts Councils and funding bodies. He has mentored and taught producing workshops across Canada including at the Canadian Film Centre, the National Screen Institute and the Atlantic Film Co-op.

Name:

Greg Klymkiw

Title:

Senior Creative Consultant - Film

Biography:

Greg Klymkiw is an award winning Canadian film producer, screenwriter and script editor. He is currently the Senior Creative Consultant in the Film Department at the Canadian Film Centre (CFC) founded by Norman Jewison. At the CFC since 1998 (as Producer-in-residence for 12 years) he is firmly committed to nurturing the next generation of Canada's filmmakers – teaching and mentoring producers, writers, directors and editors in a variety of Film Centre programmes. His focus at the CFC has always been, and continues to be on the elements of cinematic storytelling where he has been a substantial creative influence on over 50 short dramatic films, 100s of production exercises and 12 feature films including, and most notably, NURSE FIGHTER BOY, THE DARK HOURS, 19 MONTHS and CLUTCH. He also assists and mentors alumni after their graduation from the CFC in such areas as screenplay development, casting, production, post-production, promotion and career management.

Klymkiw’s latest independent venture is a writing, development and production partnership with CFC Writers Lab alumna Stephanie Boddington. Boddington and Klymkiw first met in 2007 and quickly developed a strong creative rapport that has continued over the years. The screenwriting team has a full slate of exciting new dramatic and documentary properties it is developing for the international marketplace. Their flagship production is the World War I epic “The Odyssey of Leslie Howard Stainer”, a sweeping biopic of Golden Age Hollywood superstar and hero of The Great War, Leslie Howard and based upon the best-selling biographical book “A Quite Remarkable Father” by Howard’s daughter, Leslie Ruth Howard.

Klymkiw graduated with a degree in English and Theatre from the University of Manitoba where he was heavily involved as a director and actor in a multitude of theatrical productions for the popular Winnipeg-based Black Hole Theatre Company. From 1977 to present he has worked as a freelance journalist and on-air commentator. From 1977 to 1988, he was a repertory cinema programmer in Winnipeg, as well as being a film buyer for over 50 independent small town cinemas dotting the expanse of the Prairie Provinces and Canadian Shield. From 1988 to 1992, he was Director of Marketing for The Winnipeg Film Group where he created the legend of the "Winnipeg-style" (defined as "Prairie Post-modernism" by film critic Geoff Pevere), thus vaulting numerous filmmakers onto the national and international stage. During this period, Klymkiw created and starred in the community cable cult hit SURVIVAL and masterminded the cult status of his friend and colleague Guy Maddin with TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL.

Klymkiw began producing films in the early 1980's, assisting John Paizs on several short films (including SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND). Since the late 1980's, he has produced over ten features including the work of Guy Maddin (ARCHANGEL, CAREFUL), Alan Zweig (VINYL), Cynthia Roberts (THE LAST SUPPER, BUBBLES GALORE), Bruno Lazaro Pacheco (CITY OF DARK) and Nik Sheehan (SYMPOSIUM). His most recent independent productions as Executive Producer include two projects by CFC alumna Lynn Kamm: I LOVE A LUGER, a popular web series with the full support of Canada’s official Olympic Luge team and SPRING, the specially commissioned short for the 2010 Olympics through the digital edition of the Cultural Olympiad. Klymkiw also wrote and produced UFO DOGGIES, a personal one-hour documentary narrated by Thea Gill from “Queer as Folk” and nominee for the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Whistler Film Festival.

Klymkiw's productions received many awards and critical praise. THE LAST SUPPER won Best Feature Film at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival. The National Society of Film Critics of America awarded ARCHANGEL the prize for Best Experimental Film and in 2008 it received a print restoration by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust. CAREFUL appeared on numerous ten-best lists and was selected as the opening night presentation of the Zeitgeist Films retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. CITY OF DARK received the Prize for Cinematic Innovation at the Figuera de la Foz in Portugal. BUBBLES GALORE won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Freakzone International Festival of Trash Cinema in France while also provoking debate in the House of Commons when The National Post ran a front page headline that read: “Lesbian Porn Funded By Government.”

Some believe Klymkiw is an actor and he has appeared as Akmatov the Industrialist in Guy Maddin's THE HEART OF THE WORLD, another nasty industrialist in David Weaver’s episode for the series “Great Inventions”, a beer-guzzling Ukrainian proletarian in Jeff Solylo's EAST OF EUCLID, a svelte diver and southern White Trash dog breeder in John Paizs’s SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND and CRIME WAVE respectively.

He is writing the book “Movies Are Action: The Central Principles of Cinematic Storytelling” that details the primary aesthetic/pedagogical approach he developed for use at the Canadian Film Centre. His monthly column on cinema, “Colonial Report from the Dominion of Canada” appears in “Electric Sheep Magazine”. He also writes film reviews for the acclaimed website “Daily Film Dose” and is co-hosting & co-producing the movie review web-series “The Filmseen” with his distinguished colleague Alan Bacchus and featuring an entire key creative team of CFC alumni.

And yes, he watches movies too. At last count, Klymkiw had seen over 30,000 feature films.

Name:

Ingrid Veninger

Title:

Producer Mentor

Biography:

Born in Bratislava, and raised in Canada, Ingrid is an award-winning producer/director/writer/actor with numerous credits to her name. Graduating from the CFC in 2000, Ingrid produced the short film, Three Sisters on Moon Lake (TIFF '01, Sundance). She formed pUNK FILMS in 2003 with a 'nothing is impossible' manifesto, resulting in producing 6 shorts (The Bunny Project, White Light, Uriah, Mama, Hotel Vladivostok, Action) and producing/co-writing 3 features (The Limb Salesman, Nurse.Fighter.Boy and ONLY ). Her first feature as director/writer/producer, MODRA, was shot in Slovakia with a crew of 3 and a cast of 20. Upcoming, Ingrid is co-producing Peter Mettler's END OF TIME, and developing THE DIARY OF LAURA'S TWIN, based on the best-selling novel by Kathy Kacer.

Name:

Jeff Warren

Title:

Editor in Residence

Biography:

Jeff Warren is a freelance film editor working in Canada for over 30 years. He freely moves between feature films, television drama and documentaries. Over the years Jeff has worked with many of Canada’s top directors including Sturla Gunnarsson, Gary Yates, Sudz Sutherland, Colleen Murphy, John Candy, David Wellington, John Fawcett, Don McBrearty, John Walker, Nettie Wild and Norma Bailey. HIGH LIFE was his most recent feature film, premiering in 2009 and his third collaboration with director Gary Yates. This spring his feature documentary A DRUMMER’S DREAM directed by John Walker was a big hit at the Hot Docs Festival coming in second for the Audience Appreciation Award.

In addition to editing, Jeff is a continuing mentor at The Canadian Film Centre, has given talks and workshops at York University, Ryerson Polytechnical University and Confederation College.

He has won two Hot Docs Awards, two Gemini Awards, three Directors Guild Awards and a Genie Award, all for editing. He has been nominated many more times, including an Emmy nomination in the U.S.

Name:

John Paizs

Title:

Director in Residence

Biography:

John Paizs was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Originally his ambition was to be a cartoon animator and, while still in high school, he created a four-minute Disney-style animated cartoon which in 1978 received a special citation from The British Film Institute.

Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Manitoba in 1980, Paizs decided to switch to live-action filmmaking. Equipped with a secondhand Bolex camera, he embarked on a series of ultra low-budget comedies which would earn him in the mid ‘80s the reputation as Canada’s leading independent filmmaker. He wrote, produced, directed, and starred (as The Silent Man, a nod to Buster Keaton) in these six outstandingly imaginative films, both short and feature length. Taken together, they remain today one of the most impressive and influential bodies of independent film work produced in Canada.

Of these six films, two in particular stand tall: the suburban satire SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND (1981), cited as Canada’s first postmodern film; and the feature-length “writer’s block” comedy CRIME WAVE (1986), hailed as the funniest Canadian movie ever made. Over the years these two films have garnered many accolades besides:
In 1997, the Manitoba Motion Picture Industry Association at its biannual Blizzard Awards ceremony bestowed upon CRIME WAVE a special award as Best (Manitoba-produced) Film of the Decade.

In a poll of Canada’s leading film critics and festival programmers conducted by Take One magazine in 2003 to name the country’s top ten fiction feature film debuts since 1968 (the year of the inception of the CFDC, now Telefilm Canada), CRIME WAVE placed number eight.

In a similar poll, this time conducted by The Toronto International Film Festival Group, the following year to name Canada’s top ten films of all time, CRIME WAVE appeared on six of the respondents’ lists while SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND appeared on one.

In 2008, the Canadian-produced television documentary series On Screen!, a series that “explores and celebrates the Canadian film industry’s most important cultural milestones,” devoted an episode to CRIME WAVE.

Paizs’s independent films have been presented at such prestigious venues as the Lincoln Centre and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the Walker Arts Centre in Minneapolis, the Wexner Centre for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and the Centre George Pompidou and the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, France.

After completing CRIME WAVE, Paizs decided to retire his Silent Man character as well as from ultra low-budget filmmaking. A new chapter in his directing career opened in 1990 when from “out of the blue” he received a telephone call from a producer from the hit television series The Kids in the Hall. The producer was calling to say that Bruce McCulloch of The Kids had seen CRIME WAVE on pay TV and was so impressed that he had the producer track down the agent-less Paizs in Winnipeg. One speedy all-expenses-paid trip to Toronto to meet “the kids” later, and Paizs found himself directing for the show. It was his first professional engagement as a director.

Many more were to follow, both in TV and in features. They include helming the 1999 festival smash TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN (a.k.a. INVASION!), starring Campbell Scott and Tom Everett Scott; and the 2005 made-for-TV horror-fantasy MARKER.

A third chapter in Paizs’s directing career opened in 2000, when he was made Director in Residence at the Canadian Film Centre. He remains vigorously engaged there today, mentoring Canada’s brightest filmmaking lights of tomorrow.

Name:

Karen Walton

Title:

Writer in Residence

Biography:

Karen Walton is the irreverent & socially-driven, genre-bending screen & television writer best known for the original cult horror film, GINGER SNAPS (2000). Her television credits include the critically-acclaimed true-story television pictures, THE MANY TRIALS OF ONE JANE DOE, and HEART THE MARILYN BELL STORY. She was also staff-writer & story editor on Season II of US cable network’s Showtime’s QUEER AS FOLK, CTV’s THE CITY and guest wrote several episodes for CTV’s THE ELEVENTH HOUR, and CBC’s STRAIGHT UP.

In addition to her produced credits, Karen has also developed a wide variety of feature film scripts as a writer or rewriter for Warner Brothers, Sony Columbia and Universal Studios, and independent projects in the United Kingdom. In 2005, her original romantic-fantasy co-write, BILLY GRIMM (w/ director Brad Peyton) was optioned & developed by Sony via LA’s Mosaic Media.

Back home, Karen recently completed film adaptations of celebrated novelist Michael Turner’s best-seller, THE PORNOGRAPHER’S POEM, and Guy Vanderhaeghe’s MY PRESENT AGE. She is currently co-writing the French-language film, SHOEBUSINESS with director Jean-Marc Vallee (C.R.A.Z.Y., THE YOUNG VICTORIA), while developing her bio pic, SMART - based on celebrated Toronto writer/biographer Rosemary Sullivan’s BY HEART - ELIZABETH SMART, A LIFE.

Karen is also attached as Head Writer in development of the TMN/Movie Central original adult cable drama, RIVER - with Rezolution Pictures (REEL INJUN), and is developing her own first original serial brand, ODARK.

Holding a BA Honors in Drama from the University of Alberta, Karen graduated from the Canadian Film Centre’s feature screenwriting & short film programs in 1995/6. Her trophy collection includes a Gemini for Best Writing in a Movie or Miniseries, the Canadian Comedy Award for Pretty Funny Screenplay, a special citation from the Toronto International Film Festival for the GINGER SNAPS screenplay, the CTV Banff International Television Festival fellowship Alumni Award, the Sondra Kelly Memorial Award and back in 2000, she was named one of Variety Magazine’s Top 10 Writers to Watch. In 2009, Karen was awarded the Writers Guild of Canada’s prestigious Writers Block Award for her out-standing service to the Canadian screenwriting community at large for her mentoring & activism on behalf of the entertainment & cultural industries in Canada.

An active member of the Writers Guild of America - West, Canada & Quebec’s SARTEC, Karen is the founder & current editor of the online writers’ collective ink canada – Canadian screenwriters & their sketchy friends. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she spent her teens and young adulthood in Edmonton, Alberta before settling in Toronto in 1994. She now divides her time between Toronto and her second home & office in Montreal.

Name:

Luc Montpellier

Title:

Cinematographer in Residence

Biography:

Images created by the award-winning Director of Photography, Luc Montpellier have entertained and engaged feature film audiences, festival cinephiles and television viewers for over 15 years. He is equally at home interpreting the vision of directors who seek a broad commercial audience or with an avant-garde perspective, directors who favour textured, voluptuous palettes and dramatic composition and those whose films are visually edgy, playful or experimental. His credits include: Stephen T Kay’s CELL 213, Ruba Nadda’s CAIRO TIME, Sarah Polley’s AWAY FROM HER, Guy Maddin’s THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD and Clement Virgo’s POOR BOY’S GAME.

Name:

Marissa Richmond

Title:

Casting Director in Residence

Biography:

This is Marissa Richmond’s tenth season as Casting Director-in-Residence at the Canadian Film Centre. Marissa is currently the casting director on the CTV/CBS series Flashpoint. She is also cast all 3 seasons of the highly acclaimed series Durham County produced by Back Alley Films; previous work for Back Alley includes the anthology series of female erotica Bliss, the hiphop dramatic series Drop the Beat and the critically acclaimed award winning series Straight Up. Other recent highlights of the past year include casting the Heroic Film Company series How to be Indie, as well as the Cookie Jar Pilots Mudpit as well as Decidedly Debra.

Feature work includes LOVE, SEX & EATING THE BONES, directed by Sudz Sutherland as well as the Film Centre’s Feature Film Project’s SHOW ME, directed by Cassandra Niccolau and 19 MONTHS, directed by Randall Cole. Marissa Richmond was also the casting director on the MOW's After the Harvest, directed by Jeremy Podeswa, and Lucky Girl, directed by John Fawcett, Scorn, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson and Murder Most Likely, directed by Alex Chapple.

Name:

Marlo Miazga

Title:

Editor in Residence

Biography:

Marlo has been working as an editor in film and television for the last 15 years. A graduate of McGill University and the Canadian Film Centre, Marlo has edited feature films, feature and television documentaries, as well as numerous commercials and music videos.

Notable credits include Peter Wintonick's multiple - award winning NFB feature, CINEMA VERITE; The 5 part series, TUNING IN, hosted by Rick Mercer for CBC Television's 50th anniversary; the critically successful comedy series, JIMMY MCDONALDS CANADA; Keith Behrman's award winning short film ERNEST, the highly acclaimed CBC Television feature, SEX, DRUGS AND MIDDLE AGE and Paul Fox's psychological thriller, THE DARK HOURS, and Gregory Sheppard's comedy, ST. ROZ.

Marlo has also edited numerous television series and programs for The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, CTV, Viva, Bravo and the CBC including the Gemini nominated programs Too Colourful for the League and Robert Markle: An Investigation. Recently, Marlo has created and produced her first series: CURIOUS AND UNUSUAL DEATHS broadcasting in 2009/2010 on Discovery.

Name:

Maureen Dorey

Title:

Story Editor in Residence

Biography:

Maureen Dorey is a free-lance analyst and story editor who helps writers renew their inspiration and find their voices. Her production credits include: HIDDEN, by David Shamoon, currently filming in Europe produced by Filmworks, AMAL, written by Shaun and Richie Mehta (2007), A STONE’S THROW written by Garfield Lindsay Miller and Camelia Frieberg (director) (2006). Her television work includes MOCCASIN FLATS, SEASON II, and RANDOM PASSAGE, an eight-hour mini-series directed by John N. Smith, produced by Passage Films and Cité-Amérique for broadcast on CBC and RTE (Eire), as well as EXTRAORDINARY VISITOR, THE WAR BETWEEN US; LYDDIE and ON MY MIND, 6x30 min. children’s dramas.

She has acted as consultant to the National Screen Institute, Praxis Film Works, NIFCO and B.C. Film, and has been Story Editor in Residence to the Canadian Film Centre’s Writers Lab for the past 9 years. She has acted as story editor on several Canadian Film Centre Feature Film Projects, including: NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY (produced 2008, nominated for 10 Genie Awards, including Best Screenplay), THE DARK HOURS, SIBLINGS, HORSIE’S RETREAT and SHOW ME.

Name:

Noel Baker

Title:

Writer in Residence

Biography:

Screenwriter Noel Baker is best known for his screenplay for the Canadian cult classic film, Hard Core Logo. He is also the author of the memoir recounting the making of that film, Hard Core Roadshow (Anansi/Stoddart). Among several TV credits, Baker was the co-creator of the Showcase/Oxygen Network dramatic series Show Me Yours, and he developed and co-wrote the pilot for the CBC dramatic series At The Hotel.
As a script doctor/story editor, he has worked since the mid-90s with dozens of writers, directors and producers on feature films, television series and television movies. Selected credits include work on Edoardo Ponti’s Between Strangers, starring Sophia Loren and Mira Sorvino, and The Last Chapter, a CBC miniseries set in the world of criminal biker gangs, and the soon-to-be-released rock and roll vampire comedy Suck, starring Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Moby and others.

A great believer in mentoring new writers, Baker has been Writer-in-Residence at the Canadian Film Centre since 1999 and has taught writing workshops at places as diverse as the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters in Vancouver, the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, SIFT in Ottawa, The Nickel Festival in St. John’s, Willamette University in Oregon, and United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, UAE.

2010 finds him with new projects approaching production: Mad Dog and The Weasel, a wrestling comedy directed by David Steinberg; Breakaway, a cross-culural comedy/drama directed by Robert Lieberman (production September 2010); Sam Steele, Mountie Legend, a CBC MOW; and Pig Tale, a dark fantasy stop-motion animation feature, to be directed by Aaron Woodley.

Name:

Reginald Harkema

Title:

Editor in Residence

Biography:

Reginald Harkema has directed four features. A Girl is A Girl played the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival. Better Off in Bed is a little seen documentary about the New Pornographers that was suppressed by Neko Case. Monkey Warfare won a Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Harkema's latest feature, Leslie, My Name is Evil, shocked and outraged the king of shock and outrage, John Waters, who said he was 'horrified this movie was made'. Leslie, My Name is Evil recently garnered Harkema a Director's Guild of Canada Award nomination for best direction. Reg came to directing from editing. His credits include Hard Core Logo, Last Night and the soon to be released, FUBAR 2.

Name:

Regine Schmid

Title:

International Marketplace Mentor

Biography:

Regine Schmid was born in Tübingen (Germany) and studied English and German literature at the University of Constance. After a year of teaching in Wales, she returned to Constance for an M.A. in Critical Theory.

She was a founding member of Zebrakino in Constance, a cinema-collective that quickly became a haven for filmmakers and academics as well as a centre for social and political outreach work. Zebrakino recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.

Regine’s programming work for Zebrakino lead to a job with Endfilm, a boutique film distribution company in Munich. She then joined the newly founded TiMe Medienvertriebs GmbH as Head of Acquisition and Marketing, buying and releasing international arthouse films. Regine initiated the company's move into production by negotiating a co-production with the British Film Institute, and by getting TiMe involved in the production of Jeremy Podeswa’s first feature, ECLIPSE.

Since her involvement in ECLIPSE, Regine has maintained a base in Toronto. She was responsible for TiMe’s crucial early involvement in Canadian films like THE FIVE SENSES, HARD CORE LOGO, WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING, and BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE. Her interest in Canadian cinema started in the early 90s, when she bought films like ROADKILL and the early films by Guy Maddin for Germany.

In 2000, Regine produced Renny Bartlett’s first feature, EISENSTEIN, together with Martin Paul Hus of Amérique Film (Montréal). The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. It is being sold by Fortissimo and was nominated for five Genie Awards in 2002, including Best Picture.

In 2003, Regine and Martin Paul-Hus founded Doppelgänger Pictures, a Toronto based production company. They are currently developing a number of Canadian projects including an adaptation of Maggie Helwig’s novel BETWEEN MOUNTAINS. Also in the works is a German/Vietnamese project by La Van Phuong, AT CLOSE RANGE, and several collaborations with young Russian filmmakers.

Regine has been working with the Canadian Film Centre's Feature Film Project (now CFC Features) since its inception on the marketing and distribution for films like CUBE, KHALED or THE DARK HOURS and is a regular guest at the CFC’s Producers Lab.

For the OMDC, Regine developed and ran their TIFF Market Mentorship Programme, a training programme for producers as well as Market Access Programmes at the Berlinale for many years She has been the OMDC’s International Finance Forum’s international consultant since IFF first started. In 2010, she’ manages Producers Lab Toronto, a new collaboration between European Film Promotion, OMDC and TIFF.

In 2007, she ran a Market Preparedness Initiative for Telefilm Canada for the Berlinale and in 2010 she managed Telefilm’s “Reinforcing Canada-Europe Partnerships” event at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin.

Regine has done cunsulting work in international financing, marketing and sales for clients like the Toronto International Film Festival, the National Film Board of Canada, Screen South (UK) as well as for production companies such as Rave Film (Vancouver), Cine Qua Non (Montréal), or Love Streams agnes b. (Paris).

Name:

Rosemary Dunsmore

Title:

Actor in Residence

Biography:

Rosemary is an award-winning actress whose career has taken her onto stages and film and television screens across Canada, the United States and Europe. Last year she was given the Actra Award for Best Actress in recognition of her work in THE BABY FORMULA. She began her career on stages across Canada playing leads in Stratford for two seasons and Canadian premieres of shows like Sam Shepherd’s BURIED CHILD and Marsha Norman’s GETTING OUT. Other highlights include a Dora nominated one woman show SINGLE, STRAIGHT AHEAD (selected Best Performer at the Edinburgh Fringe by the London Daily Telegraph), BLIND DANCERS (Dora Award) and plays ranging from PRIVATE LIVES to FALLEN ANGELS (Dora Nomination), THE DOMINO HEART, THE GLASS MENAGERIE and THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE. She was awarded the Masque Award for Interpretation Feminine for her performance in WIT and was nominated for her work in LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. Also in Montreal, she was given the MECCA award for Best Actress for her work in GLORIOUS! Recently in Toronto, she appeared in FESTEN, THE SISTERS ROSENSWEIG and BURIED. She will be acting in the Summerworks Festival this August in a new play called Kayak and later in the fall in THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM at the Tarragon Theatre.

Rosemary entered the world of the camera with equal success. Her first major television appearance in CBC’s Blind Faith won her the Earl Grey Award for Best Performance in a Leading Role. Her frequent television appearances have garnered her four Gemini nominations. She is probably best known for her role as “Katherine Brooke” in Anne Of Green Gables-The Sequel, and the title role in the CBC series MOM P.I. She split her time between Los Angeles, Vancouver and Toronto. While in LA she appeared in many TV series and movies of the week. Some favourite roles were in Total Recall, Twins, The Interrogation of Michael Crowe, Dreamcatcher and Citizen Duane. Recent projects include episodes in Crash and Burn, Living in my Car, Unnatural History and The Murdoch Mysteries, MOW's Red, The Good Times are Killing Me, Too Late to Say Goodbye, Playing House, Wedding Wars, St. Urbain’s Horseman and features At Home By Myself with Me, Orphan and Faces in the Crowd.

Rosemary is also a sought after theatre director. Some of the plays she has directed are VIRGINIA, HOCKEY MOM. HOCKEY DAD MEASURE FOR MEASURE, DINNER WITH FRIENDS, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, JANE EYRE, FIGHTING WORDS (Dora Nomination for Best Director), WALKING ON CRIMSON, THE GLACE BAY MINER’S MUSEUM, WHALE MUSIC, HERE ON THE FLIGHT PATH, SEXY LAUNDRY, BORDERTOWN CAFÉ. This winter she will direct THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE in Halifax.

Rosemary teaches at Equity Showcase, the National Theatre School, University of Toronto, S.I.F.T., George Brown College, Humber College, Film Training Manitoba and Halifax Shortworks. Rosemary is listed in Who’s Who in Canada and in 1990 was included on Maclean’s Magazine’s Honour Roll as “a Canadian who makes a difference.”

Name:

Ruba Nadda

Title:

Director Mentor

Biography:

Ruba Nadda is a critically and internationally acclaimed Canadian filmmaker. Cairo Time (2009) had its worldwide premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (2009) as a Special Presentation where it was also awarded Best Canadian Feature Film. It is having a U.S. theatrical release this coming June (2010) by IFC. Cairo Time is set in Egypt with producers Daniel Iron and Killer Films and starring Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig.

Her films include Sabah (starring Arsinee Khanjian) and 13 shorts (Aadan, Blue turning grey over you, Black September, I would suffer cold hands for you, Laila, Slut, Damascus nights, The wind blows towards me particularly, So far gone, Do nothing, Wet heat drifts through the afternoon, Interstate love story, lost woman story) Her films have been shown over 500 times in film festivals around the world with over 30 retrospectives of her work. She is currently working on her next two feature films with Daniel Iron and Christine Vachon as producers.

Name:

Susan Alexander

Title:

TV Producer In Residence

Biography:

Susan Alexander is a Production Executive with Canwest Media for their dramatic channels Global, SHOWCASE and TVtropolis, overseeing the development and production of a variety of dramatic series including Haven, Crash & Burn, Exes & Ohs and Producing Parker.

Before becoming a broadcaster, Susan was on the production side of the industry for over 20 years. Prior to joining Canwest she produced various Canadian dramatic series. Susan developed, produced and was a writer on the critically acclaimed Little Mosque on the Prairie, for which she received various awards, including a Gemini. She produced G Spot III for Showcase, and was the supervising producer on the CBC series Drop The Beat, to name a few. She has also worked in various production roles on series like Traders, Side Effects and Street Legal.

As Director of Development for Barna Alper Productions and Minds Eye Pictures, two of Canada’s leading production companies, Susan was involved in the development of many successful Canadian projects including CTV’s The Bridge, CBC miniseries on the lives of Don Cherry and Tommy Douglas, and the comedy series Da Kink in My Hair for Global TV.

In addition to drama, Susan has been a Supervising Producer on over 100 episodes of lifestyle programming, including the hit series The Designer Guys for HGTV, for which she received a CFTPA Indie Award for Best Lifestyle Series.

Susan is a proud graduate of the Canadian Film Centre where she currently is their TV consultant. She is a member of the Writers Guild of Canada and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.