Filmmaker Spotlight: Vanessa Sandre, The Pleasure Is All Mine

VANESSA SANDRE is a Brazilian filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Film and a Master's degree in Literature focused on Women and Gender Studies. Vanessa has cultivated a diverse career as a screenwriter, producer, director, and performer for the last 14 years.  As a Latina immigrant and artist, she finds inspiration in crafting narratives that amplify underrepresented voices through a decolonial and intersectional feminist lens.

Filmmaker Spotlight: Emma Zuck, Adagio

Emma Zuck is a filmmaker and writer. She is wrapped up in the sentimental— unraveling themes of identity, home, queerness, and growing pains. Her thesis film Adagio premiered at Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, taking home the Air Canada Short Film Award. She has had the pleasure of working with CBC, Bell Media, PostMedia, and Angel Entertainment.

Filmmaker Spotlight: Sara Rangooni, Leveled

Founder of Dalphinium Media, SARA RANGOONI is a Director and Writer dedicated to changing the narrative for equity deserving communities through powerful storytelling. Born and raised in Toronto, her award-winning proof of concept, short film, Leveled still continues to make the festival circuit worldwide and has catapulted her to new heights. She believes in the power of changing perspective through four-dimensional storytelling.

Filmmaker Spotlight: Christina Ienna, Gemma

CHRISTINA IENNA is an award-winning cinematographer and filmmaker based in Toronto. She has an extensive background in commercial, documentary and narrative production. She also sits on the Board of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. In her fifteen years of industry experience, Christina has filmed all over North America with companies like TOURISM CANADA, AMAZON, LIFETIME, PIXAR, CBC, THE GLOBE & MAIL, VICE and UNIVERSAL MUSIC. She spent the early part of her career working in Alberta and British Columbia before moving to Toronto. Christina leads with great curiosity, finding stories in the small moments and details that make up the human experience.

Filmmaker Spotlight: Nelie Diverlus, Ninth Step

Nelie Diverlus is an emerging writer and director. Born in Florida, her love of art blossomed amongst a large family of many artists. Most recently, her work has been featured in Breakthroughs Film Festival and St. John’s International Women’s Festival. With her thick Haitian roots, Nelie wishes to revolutionize cinema in ways that spark creativity and hope within the artist in all of us.

BFF 2020 SPOTLIGHT: ARLEN AGUAYO STEWART & MARGARITA VALDERRAMA, DATE NIGHT

Arlen Aguayo-Stewart is a Montreal-born and Toronto-based actor and creator. Date Night is her first stab at directing film. She has an eclectic background in film, theatre, dance, circus, and is fluent in five languages. Some of her acting credits include TAKEN (NBC), In Contempt (BET), On the Basis of Sex, and most notably her starring role in Roads in February that not only won Best First Feature at TIFF but also landed her a Vancouver Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress.

CONTINUE READING …

BFF 2020 SPOTLIGHT: ALEXA TREMBLAY-FRANCOEUR, AFFANNATO

Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur is native from the city of Québec, now residing in Saguenay. It is only near the end of her studies that she starts experimenting with hand-drawn animation, at first with Crayon Rose, Cheveux vert then with Déconstruction and finally with The Passage an official part of the selection of the festival Regard sur le Court-Métrage in 2016. In the same year she completed her baccalaureate in art at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.

CONTINUE READING …

BFF 2020 SPOTLIGHT: CHANELLE LAJOIE, MÉTIS FEMME BODIES

A dyslexic 7w6 who does not know her sun sign from her moon sign, Chanelle Lajoie is continuously striving to align her ethics, principals, and goals better than she does her posture. As a Queer Métis Femme living on Treaty 1 Territory, community building is Chanelle's medicine. Rooting and weaving her academic studies, work, and creative passions closely alongside her personal politics aids in merging the communities that reside in each.

CONTINUE READING …

BFF 2020 SPOTLIGHT: KOURTNEY JACKSON, WASH DAY

Kourtney Jackson is a filmmaker from Toronto. She was the 2018 Emerging Director’s Spotlight winner at the Regent Park Film Festival, where she premiered her experimental short 1 vers[us] 1. Through film, she continues to explore the histories, nuances, and intersections in her ethnic, cultural, and spiritual identity. Wash Day is her second project.

CONTINUE READING …