Name:

Anne Carey

Title:

Producer Mentor

Biography:

Anne Carey is a New York based independent producer.

Together with Ted Hope, Anthony Bregman and Diana Victor, Carey founded the New York City production company This is that, Inc. in 2002, based on the collaborative work they had begun at their previous company, Good Machine, Inc. Specializing in unique content and innovative storytelling, This is that produced 18 films in its eight-year existence.

Carey currently has Anton Corbijn’s THE AMERICAN, written by Rowan Joffe and starring George Clooney in release through Focus Features. The film opened in the US on September 1st and internationally shortly thereafter.

In 2008 Carey produced ADVENTURELAND, written and directed by Greg Mottola and starring Ryan Reynolds, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. ADVENTURELAND was released through Miramax in April 2009.

In 2007 Carey produced THE SAVAGES, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. THE SAVAGES won Best Screenplay and Best Actor honors at the 2008 Indie Spirit Awards and garnered two Oscar nominations. That year, Carey also executive produced Oscar-winner Alan Ball’s feature film directorial debut, TOWELHEAD, which premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

Carey's other notable film credits include FRIENDS WITH MONEY, THUMBSUCKER, THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR and THE LARAMIE PROJECT.
Carey was honored as one of Variety’s Top Ten Producers to Watch in 2004

Name:

Christina Piovesan

Title:

Producer Mentor

Biography:

First Generation Films’ filmography includes Amreeka, Cherien Dabis' debut feature film which premiered in US Competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. It went on to open New Directors/New Films at the Lincoln Centre and it played at the Director's Fortnight in Cannes where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. The film was nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards, an NAACP Award, a Gotham Award as well as being sold worldwide. National Geographic Films distributed in the US.

FGF also produced The Whistleblower (six time Genie nominee), about a Nebraska cop who risks all to uncover UN corruption in post-war Bosnia, starring Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn. FGF was a co-producer on Red Lights, the second feature film from Rodrigo Cortes (Buried) which premiered at Sundance 2012 and sold to Millenium in the US. The film stars Robert DeNiro, Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver and Elizabeth Olsen. Currently in post is the feature film The Lesser Blessed, featuring Benjamin Bratt. On the horizon for FGF is the science fiction feature Supernova, and the horror film Gerald’s Game, based on Stephen King’s short story and in development with Nostromo Pictures (Red Lights).

Christina Piovesan, founder of First Generation Films, earned a Masters Degree from the University of Southern California where she won a student Emmy Award for her work on the short film Miracle Mile. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University and is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Science, the Canadian Film & Television Producer’s Association, FIND LA and IFP New York.

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. He was invited to join the Ateliers du Cinéma Européen (ACE) with his current project, The Book of Negroes, a screen adaptation of the best-selling novel by Lawrence Hill which won the 2008 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize.

Name:

David Ostry

Title:

Editor Mentor

Biography:

David Ostry has been editing feature films and television in Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles for over 20 years. His credits include NEW WATERFORD GIRL, KING and the Gemini winner LIFE WITH BILLY.

As a director his award-winning short films, LEGS, EYES, BABYFILM and MILO 55160 have screened at festivals all over the world including Hot Docs, AFI Film Festival, the London Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. His film EYES premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and screened at the National Gallery in Washington.

As well as winning multiple festival awards and citations his film Milo 55160, written and directed while at the Canadian Film Centre, won the 2006 Genie award for Best Live-Action Short Drama. Following that he was hired to direct the feature film The Good Student for Kevin Spacey’s Triggerstreet Independent. He lives in Toronto.

Name:

John Paizs

Title:

Director in Residence

Biography:

“The most influential Canadian director you’ve never heard of.” — Mark Peranson, Take One Magazine

“A disgracefully neglected Can-Con treasure.” — Gemma Files, Eye Weekly

John Paizs was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Originally his ambition was to be an animator and while still in high school he created a four-minute Disney-style animation 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.

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 from independent filmmaking. A new chapter in his directing career opened in 1990 when he was invited to direct for the hit TV series “The Kids in the Hall”. It was his first professional directing engagement.

Many more were to follow, both in TV and in features. They include helming the 1999 festival hit 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 joined the Canadian Film Centre as its Director in Residence. He remains vigorously engaged there today, mentoring Canada’s brightest filmmaking lights of tomorrow.

Name:

Katharine Asals

Title:

Editor in Residence

Biography:

Katharine Asals has had a long career in documentary editing including award-winning films such as Kevin McMahon's Stolen Spirits of Haida Gwaii, Clint Tourangeau's Deep Inside Clint Star, Min Sook Lee's El Contrato, and Mary Ellen Davis' Tierra Madre.
Her documentary training ground was as assistant-everything on the film Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky and the Media. Her fiction training began as assistant editor on feature films in Quebec, and continued with the CFC's Editor's Lab.
Katharine has made several short films, including Past History, which screened at TIFF, won a Documentary Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and was nominated for a Multicultural Award at the Yorkton Film Festival.
She recently completed a Masters at York University, and has been presenting and publishing articles on film theory. She currently teaches editing at Humber College.

Name:

Lesley Krueger

Title:

Writer Mentor

Biography:

Lesley Krueger is a filmmaker and novelist born in Vancouver, Canada, and now based in Toronto. The author of five critically-acclaimed books, she is an in-demand screenwriter who script doctored the feature SILENT HILL, which opened number one at the box office and earned $100 million internationally, plus $40 million in DVD sales. She recently wrote the co-pro feature SINGLE SHOT, due to go to camera in October, 2012, with director Toru Tokikawa and producers Juliette Hagopian and Yu-Fai Suen. Lesley has three other feature scripts in development. She has also written and done uncredited writing on projects for Universal and Sony Pictures in Los Angeles, and producers such as the Oscar-winning Thomas Langmann (THE ARTIST) and Roberto Ciccuto of Italy (HOTEL RWANDA). This year, she has also written two short films now in the can: ARTIST: UNKNOWN, with director Craig Goodwill, and HOW TO KEEP YOUR DAY JOB, with director Sean Frewer and producer Lea Marin. In 2010, she story edited the feature STAINED by writer-director Karen Lam, which screened under the Canadian Perspectives initiative at Cannes, and subsequently became the first indie feature film to reach the top ten in sales on iTunes.

Name:

Marissa Richmond

Title:

Casting Director in Residence

Biography:

Marissa Richmond has just completed 5 Seasons of the CTV/ION/CBS series Flashpoint, and cast the CTV pilot Stay With Me. She is working on the CBC/ITV celebrity laden series Bookaboo as well as a new YTV Series The Pods. Marissa 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 include casting Family Channel’s Debra! and YTV’s How to be Indie.
She is thrilled that The Gemini Awards honoured her with nominations in 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2011 for Best Achievement in Casting for Durham County and Flashpoint respectively, and won the Gemini Award in 2011 for Season 3 of Durham County.

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.
Marissa has just completed her twelfth season as Casting Director-in-Residence at the Canadian Film Centre.

Name:

Marlo Miazga

Title:

Editor Mentor

Biography:

Marlo has been working in the film and television industry for the last 18 years. A graduate of McGill University’s Film and Communications program and the Canadian Film Centre’s prestigious Film Lab, Marlo has worked with some of the leading voices in Canadian film and television. As a film editor some of her notable credits include: Peter Wintonick’s, multiple award winning NFB feature, CINEMA VERITE: THE DEFINING MOMENT, Rick Mercer’s 5 part series for CBC’s 50th Anniversary: TUNING IN; Greig Dymond’s 8 part comedy series: JIMMY MCDONALDS CANADA, Keith Behrman's award winning short film ERNEST, Paul Fox's psychological thriller and international award winner: THE DARK HOURS and Ann Marie Redmond’s critically acclaimed feature documentary: SEX,DRUGS AND MIDDLE AGE.
Marlo has worked on numerous series and programs for almost every major broadcaster in the country including, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, CTV, CBC, Radio Canada, TVO, Bravo, TSN, W Network, YTV, MuchMusic, MusiquePlus and Global. Marlo has also worked as the Canadian Film Centre’s, EDITOR IN RESIDENCE, where she has mentored and advised on more than 40 films in the last 5 years. In the last year Marlo created and produced with The Discovery Channel, the highly rated series: CURIOUS AND UNUSUAL DEATHS, now going into its second season. Most recently, Marlo and business partner Ann Marie Redmond have just launched a new production company - NEWROAD MEDIA - opening its doors in April of 2011.

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: IN DARKNESS, by David Shamoon, directed by Agnieszka Holland and produced by Filmworks, nominated for an Oscar and three Genies, including Best Screenplay, AMAL, written by Shaun and Richie Mehta (2007), and BLACKBIRD written by Jason Buxton, produced by Marc Almon (2012). 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.

Story Editor in Residence to the Canadian Film Centre’s Writers Lab for the past 10 years, she has also taught at York University, and acted as consultant to the National Screen Institute, Praxis Film Works, NIFCO and B.C. Film. 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's most recent feature film credit is for Breakaway (2011), a cross cultural hockey comedy with Russell Peters and Rob Lowe. He's best known for his screenplay for the cult classic film, Hard Core Logo and for his memoir recounting the making of that film, Hard Core Roadshow. 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. He currently has a slate of feature and television projects in active development. As a highly-sought script consultant, Baker has worked on dozens of feature and television projects, and has many credits as Story Editor. In addition to his work with the CFC since 1999, he's mentored and taught workshops at the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters in Vancouver, the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, SIFT in Ottawa, the University of Western Ontario, Willamette University in Oregon, and United Arab Emirates University. He's pleased to return to the CFC for the 2012 Writer's Lab.

Name:

Pen Densham

Title:

Writer Mentor

Biography:

Pen Densham is an award-winning triple-hyphenate: a writer, producer & director. He is co-founder of Trilogy Entertainment Group in Los Angeles and Canada (a company whose works have currently grossed more than $1 billion dollars worldwide). He worked with Marshall McLuhan, founded the twice Oscar-nominated Toronto based company Insight Productions with John Watson, and was mentored to Hollywood by Norman Jewison. He writes and directs both TV and features and is responsible for reviving THE OUTER LIMITS and THE TWILIGHT ZONE for television, feature films such as ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, LARGER THAN LIFE starring Bill Murray, HOUDINI for TNT - Chaz Thorne's JUST BURIED and many others. His personal favorite is MOLL FLANDERS, a feature that he wrote and directed, starring Robin Wright and Morgan Freeman. He and Watson are currently Producing film-maker Todd Robinson's PHANTOM starring Ed Harris and David Duchovny a suspense drama set on a Russian Cold War submarine. Pen also teaches an annual MFA course at USC Film School that caused him to write his insider’s book on screenwriting, RIDING THE ALLIGATOR: Strategies for a Career in Screenplay Writing (And Not Getting Eaten, sharing his chapters with his students as he discovered their needs and goals. Published by MWP, the book has been hailed by Hollywood talent like Ron Howard, Paul Haggis, Norman Jewison, Robin Wright, Morgan Freeman, and by academics at top film schools like USC, UCLA, AFI, CFC and beyond.

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. In 2009 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, BLIND DANCERS (selected Best Performer at the Edinburgh Fringe by the London Daily Telegraph,Dora Award) and plays ranging from PRIVATE LIVES to FALLEN ANGELS, 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, KAYAK ,THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM (Dora Best Actress nomination),TOUT COMME ELLE in the 2011 Luminato Festival and PIECES. She will appear in HAUNTED and ALLIE AND KEV at the 2012 Summerworks Festival.

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 Runaway at 17, Red, The Good Times are Killing Me, Too Late to Say Goodbye, Playing House, Wedding Wars, St. Urbain’s Horseman, The Santa Suit and features At Home By Myself with Me, Orphan, Faces in the Crowd and webseries Guidestones. In June this year she did the second season of webseries Ruby Skye P.I. directed by CFC grad Kelly Harms and MOW The Perfect Surrogate directed by CFC grad Adrian Wills.

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, THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE( Merritt nomination Best Director), THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH and MY GRANNY THE GOLDFISH.

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 (starring Patricia Clarkson & Alexander Siddig 2009) had its worldwide premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (2009) as a Special Presentation where it was awarded Best Canadian Feature Film. It had its U.S. theatrical release in August 2010 by IFC and has since received stunning critical and commercial success culminating with winning the best reviewed film (Romance) of 2010 on Rotten Tomatoes.

Ruba’s 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.

Her new feature film, a thriller called Inescapable starring Alexander Siddig (Cairo Time), Marisa Tomei and Joshua Jackson with Daniel Iron and Christine Vachon as producer, hit theatres in September 2012.

Name:

Susan Alexander

Title:

TV Producer Mentor

Biography:

Susan Alexander is a Production Executive with Shaw Media for Global and Showcase, overseeing the development and production of a variety of dramatic series including Bomb Girls, Haven, Endgame and Copper.

Prior to becoming a broadcaster, Susan was on the production side of the Canadian industry for over 20 years.

As a writer and producer on the critically acclaimed Little Mosque on the Prairie, she garnered various awards, including a Gemini. Susan was also a producer on G Spot III for Showcase, and on the CBC series Drop The Beat.

As Director of Development for two of Canada’s leading production companies, Susan was involved in the development of many successful projects including CTV’s The Bridge, and the CBC miniseries Keep Your Head Up Kid.

In addition to drama, Susan has been the Supervising Producer on over 100 episodes of lifestyle programming, including the hit series The Designer Guys for HGTV.

Susan is a proud graduate of the Canadian Film Centre and currently is the TV Consultant for their film programme. She is a member of the Writers Guild of Canada and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.