2024 JURY MEMBERS

lindsey addawoo

lindsey addawoo (she/her) is an award-winning writer from Toronto.

Her work is largely in the realm of drama and genre and has screened at film festivals such as American Black Film Festival, Montreal Black Film Festival, and Reelworld Film Festival.

Her first short film, Queen of Hearts (2018), won the 2017 Inside Out Film Festival BravoFACT pitch award. She co-wrote Promise Me (2020), a short film that won the Standout Short Film Writer Award at Reelworld Film Festival where she was also a Reelworld E20 participant.

Her credits include: Street Legal (CBC), Coroner (The CW/Netflix/CBC), Xavier Riddle and The Secret Museum (PBS, 2024) and Director X’s Robyn Hood (Boat Rocker/Corus).

She is an alumna of BIPOC TV & Film’s inaugural Episodic Drama Writers’ Lab (2021) and Showrunner Bootcamp (2022). lindsey was later inducted into the 2022 Warner Bros. Discovery Access x Canadian Academy Writers Program and is a recent recipient of the Rogers-Black Screen Office (BSO) Script Development Fund.

MARUSHKA JESSICA ALMEIDA

Middle East born and raised, Marushka Jessica Almeida (they/them) is a South Asian writer/producer, ex-accountant, former music business manager and many other failed careers their parents are too depressed to list. Currently, they're a story editor on SyFy’s Revival. They're also an Exec- Producer/Creator on Get Up, Aisha (CBC Gem) and POV:me (Shaftesbury). They have worked on Made For TV with Boman Martinez Reid (Crave), Saint Pierre (CBC), Austin Film Fest Select Homeschooled (CBC), Near or Far (Wattpad, CBC), Cannesseries select Streams Flow From a River (Superchannel/Apple TV, Amazon Prime) Canadian Screen Award-winning/Cannesseries select Revenge of the Black Best Friend (CBC) and other Canadian dramas and comedies that they'll probably get sued for if they talk about. Marushka is also an alumnus of CFC's 2024 Comedy Story Room Intensive with mentor Anthony Q Farrell. When Marushka isn't swimming in a whirlpool of existential dread they can be found complaining about why public nap areas don't exist.

SARA ABDUL

Sara Abdul is a multidisciplinary artist who always seems to come back to movies, whether it is through criticism, filmmaking or scholarly work. She is currently working on a horror short that combines live action and 2D animation to re-animate Taddle Creek, a now buried river that once ran throughout downtown Toronto. You can find her on twitter @zolnicura or on letterboxd @vulnicuraa.