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Daniel Jeffrey – Free Range (BC)

Daniel Jeffery is a creator of documentary and comedy short films covering subjects like adult circumcision, cinephilia, and pet euthanasia. Since graduating SFU Film in 2013, he has worked professionally in Vancouver as an editor, actor, and filmmaker. His recent self-financed short film, A New Leash On Life (2020) has screened at over 25 festivals including Vancouver International FF ’20, Edmonton International FF ’20, and DC Shorts ’20. His editing work has been selected by TIFF, VIFF, DOXA, CBC, Crazy 8s, Telus Storyhive, IGN, Vimeo Staff Picks, Booooooom.com and has received two Leo Award nominations.

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Before a long road trip back to the city, retired teacher Dave Jeffery is tasked with capturing four bullying roosters from the family chicken coop for drop-off at the butchery. Dave enlists the help of his children who, sensing disaster, take it upon themselves to create an impromptu documentary of the ordeal. What starts as a simple chroniclization unfolds into a daylong misadventure – revealing the unconventional philosophies and teaching stylings of a laissez faire parent, and the dynamics of a family shaped by them.

Free Range will be showing as part of our TEAL program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Have you peeped our trailer? Have a look!

Joëlle Arseneau – Think of You (QC)

Director, producer and editor Joëlle Arseneau focuses on human experience and connections in her films. Her life’s work and her approach to filmmaking stem from her childhood spent in Îles-de-la-Madeleine, a place that she continues to draw inspiration from today. 
In Montreal, where she studied cinema and management in university, Joëlle founded Le Pied Marin Production in 2009 to produce films independently, while focusing on bringing the artists’ creative ideas to life. She was awarded a grant from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television under the Programme national d’apprentissage. This program gave Joëlle the chance to participate in many job shadowing opportunities in editing at various production companies. She expanded her natural interest for documentary film to include fiction to her repertoire.

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The colorful musical universe of songwriter and singer Yan Etchevary.

Think of You will be showing as part of our PURPLE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Akil McKenzie – Legacy Voices (ON)

Akil McKenzie is the CEO of media production company, Falling Motion. He runs a team of talented people that work on films, commercials, music videos, weddings, and events. They have worked with clients such as Lexus, Carlsberg, Chanel, Redbull, the Globe and Mail, and Dexta Daps to name a few. Falling Motion is currently Halton’s main hub for media production and have been filming many community oriented projects throughout the pandemic. Akil is an award winning director, producer, cinematographer, editor, public speaker, and poetic artist. He does numerous lectures at secondary and post secondary institutions about film, poetry, social justice, and speech writing etiquette. As a creative, Akil is always looking for new artforms to express thought and emotion.

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Elderly members of the Halton community share their experiences as some of the first Black people to live in Ontario’s Halton Region.

Legacy Voices will be showing as part of our BLUE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Earthstar Smith – Asteroid Season (BC)

Earthstar Smith is an artist and filmmaker based in Vancouver, BC. His short animated works include the ‘Genetisphere’ animated TV pilot, selected for the New York Television Festival’s independent pilot competition in 2009. Working on a mix of solo and collaborative projects, Earthstar acts as writer, director, storyboard artist, character designer, and animator. His future goals include directing epic animated features and charming cartoon series.

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In a lonesome frozen land, a feisty hermit lives a charmed life. Her quirky self-sufficient routine is happily fixed, but catastrophic change waits just around the corner to transform her environment and change her outlook. When an enormous asteroid arrives overhead, her sheltered reality will face a cosmic shake-up. In the course of losing the world she knows, the hermit just might find the companionship she’s always hoped for.

Asteroid Season will be showing as part of our BLUE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Peter Faint – Caught Dead-Handed Redux (BC)

Peter Faint is a writer director of six short films that have played in festivals across North America including Sudbury Cinefest International Film Festival and Shorts TV, alongside Oscar award-winning shorts.

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A true-crime documentary crew interviews various people intimate with the a shocking murder as the behind the sceens production unravels.

Caught Dead-Handed Redux will be showing as part of our BLUE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Cindy Mochizuki – Sue Sada Was Here (BC)

Cindy Mochizuki has created installation, performance, animation, drawings and collaborative works that consider spaces that embody both the fictional and documentary. Often working with archival sources, memory work and interviews; her practice revisits historical and personal memory. Her multi-media works experiment with moving images, optical illusions and magical realism through a hybrid of video, film, audio and animation.

 A large body of her work investigates narratives and memories within the archive of familial architecture, including childhood spaces, home videos, photography, and oral histories. Family, displacement, migration and remembrance of traumatic historical memory have been departure points within an ongoing series of works that re-visits the memory and history of the Japanese Canadian internment and its effects on family members both within Canada and Japan.

Mochizuki’s short films have been screened in Hungary, Holland, Korea, Toronto, Los Angeles and Montreal. Recent exhibitions include: AIR 475, (2014) Yonago, Japan, Fictive Communities Asia, Koganecho Bazaar (2014), On the Subject of Ghosts, Hamilton Artists Inc (2013), Yokai & Other Spirits, Toronto Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (2013), and To|From BC Electric Railway 100 Years, Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (2012).

She has received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the School For Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.

Sue Sada Was Here is an experimental film that turns written texts Muriel Kitagawa (1912–1974) into scores of physical movement, which are then enacted in the historic Roedde House. Kitagawa’s editorial writing and unpublished manuscripts speak to the pre- and post-war periods in Vancouver, particularly the injustices of the Canadian government’s policies towards Japanese and Japanese Canadians. The performers embody Sue Sada, one of Kitagawa’s pen names and use books as objects of print history that can omit histories of violence and colonialism. This film was originally commissioned for Memories of the Future III.

Sue Sada Was Here will be showing as part of our TEAL program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Andrea Cass – Wheels of Life (NL)

Andrea Cass is a filmmaker located in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Her first film, “River of Fire”, was selected for film festivals in Canada and the United States including FIN-Atlantic International Film Festival, the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival and the Garden State Film Festival. This beautiful short documentary captures the sights, sounds and spirit of the Victoria Park Lantern Festival in downtown St. John’s, Newfoundland. Her second short, “Wheels of Life”, documents the experiences of 3 long-term care residents as they enjoy a taste of freedom on an adaptive bicycle built for two. Wheels of Life was screened at The Nickel Independent Film Festival, FIN-Atlantic, SJIWFF, Charlottetown and the Halifax Independent Film Festival. Andrea’s latest film, a dramatic short, “SPIN”, will be released in the fall of 2021.


“…Free, free like a bird!”

Wheels of Life is a short documentary that covers a single summer day in the lives of three long-term care residents as they enjoy a bit of freedom on an adaptive bicycle built for two.

Wheels of Life will be showing as part of our PURPLE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Stefan Kuchar – That Thing You Did (ON)

Stefan Kuchar is a Toronto based filmmaker who is passionate about creating and sharing films. A producer and director with Sudden Impulse Productions and the founder and producer of the annual Sudden Impulse Film Festival, showcasing local Toronto and GTA short films since 2011. In 2019, he was awarded Best International Director at the Atlanta Comedy Film Festival for his work on the web series French Off the Boat. In 2017 his short comedy Legends of the Falls, about a group of Niagara Falls mascots, played at 7 festivals across 3 countries. His 2019 short film Around the Hole was a finalist at the 48 Hour Toronto Film Project and his latest short That Thing You Did is currently in the festival circuit.

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That Thing You Did. An office place comedy set during the covid 19 global pandemic. Llyns coworkers react to the news of her being fired by changing their custom printed expressive face masks.

That Thing You Did will be showing as part of our BLUE program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Mawrgan Shaw – Days Like These (ON)

Mawrgan Shaw BA(Media&Comm), M(DigFilm), is a visual artist and animator based in Toronto, Canada, originally from Melbourne, Australia. Mawrgan’s art is inspired by our sense of self and the intersection with our physical reality, and how we move through and make meaning in the world. Mawrgan creates 2D frame-by-frame animation traditionally using mixed media; ink, marker, charcoal and watercolour, and digitally to explore texture and feel. Recently, Mawrgan has had her animated work featured in festivals in Canada and the United States, and has upcoming programming in South Korea and China.

Instagram – Website

Days Like These is an animated piece that celebrates dance in the midst of a global pandemic. Performing alone, we watch a dancer whose image is constantly changing. Created in the first three months of the pandemic, this film is an expression of the tension and anxiety I felt as lockdowns occurred around the world. It is a story through dance about the difficulties in overcoming the very natural desire to touch someone; to make contact, when this is now unsafe.

Days Like These will be showing as part of our TEAL program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!

Andy Wong – Small Bites (BC)

Andy Wong, Director of Small Bites, is an Asian-Canadian film maker from Vancouver. After finishing the film program at Simon Fraser University, he very quickly began working in various departments in Vancouver’s booming film and TV industry before finally settling in as an assistant director, with credits such as Supergirl, DC Legends of Tomorrow, and The Detour. He discovered soon after that his passion lies in producing, and began producing “The Star of Therapy” with his two friends under the company “Come On In Productions” and ultimately starting his own production company “Lonely Artists Production”. With multiple completed short films, and other projects in post-production, Andy has built a strong foundation as a producer in only a couple of years. Most recently he produced a short film that received funding from the National Film Board and the Canadian Arts Council called “Hekademia”. His passion, drive and well-rounded experience in the film industry has made him a strong asset on any production team.

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Lissa Neptuno, Writer and Producer of Small Bites, is an Asian-Canadian actor, writer and producer who was born in Brunei and raised in Western Canada. Growing up in a creative household, she first discovered writing and imitating cartoon voices as a way to express herself, and was soon drawn to acting and drama classes in high school. Upon graduation she was awarded a scholarship to Vancouver Film School, and after graduating that program entered into one of Western Canada’s most prestigious acting schools, Studio 58, the only conservatory program in the region. Since graduating, her training and experience in both theatre and film has brought her to Toronto and Berlin, and all over BC. In 2015 she co-produced the play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, and has been producing ever since. When Covid-19 struck in March 2020 she was inspired to write Day 60, in response to violence against Asians in Canada and around the world. Working in film, television, stage, and print ads, Lissa has since been awarded Best Performance for her lead role in Small Bites, a film featured in the Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon for the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. Currently based in Vancouver, she continues to pursue her dreams of being the next great film and stage actor. Her favorite credits include Morris in “The Nether”, Anne in Virgin River, and Mr. Average Joe in Supergirl.

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Mike Li, Producer of Small Bites was born in Hong Kong, the only child of Josephine, an educator, and Eddie, a social worker. His first stage role was “Officer #2” in a high school production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Since going on to tackle character roles like “Templeton” in Charlotte’s Web and “Mercutio”, Mike jumped straight into acting classes after graduation and began auditioning before the age of 19. After finding small successes on shows like the CW’s Arrow and Showcase’s Travelers, he landed his first feature film role acting opposite Blake Lively in The Age of Adaline (2015); scenes that were ultimately cut for time. Mike made his proper feature film debut in the Dwayne Johnson blockbuster Skyscraper (2018). His first recurring role was playing a Yakuza on the third season of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, which he followed up with a couple of appearances on CBS’s Salvation season two. An avid video gamer, it was a dream come true for him to join the voice cast of United Front’s “Sleeping Dogs” starring Will Yun Lee. Mike spends much of his time collaborating with fellow actors and filmmakers to write and produce his own projects, working part-time co-producing with Thought Swerve Media as well as his company, Fiasco Entertainment.

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When friends Annie, Robbie, Jason, and Dave meet up for a hike, Dave asks Annie questions that are micro-aggressive in nature. Climbing this mountain trail Annie is continually bitten by mosquitoes when Dave asks her seemingly harmless questions about her race and ethnicity. As the trail progresses, Jason and Annie’s friendship comes into question when Dave goes too far and pushes Annie to challenge him. Left with an ally in Robbie, who has been considerably bitten as well, Annie is forced to reconsider her position in this group, and in the world.

Small Bites will be showing as part of our TEAL program exhibiting July 15-19th, 2021!