His Canadian clients include all levels of government, Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, including the World Bank, small and medium-sized corporate enterprises, and Indigenous peoples.

As an author and co-author, Bob has contributed to a number of resources relating to working with Aboriginal or Indigenous Peoples. He also manages a blog called Working Effectively with Indigenous Peoples®, which is a resource that supports people in their Indigenous relations endeavours.

For more information please head here: www.ictinc.ca

Image Copyright: Bob Joseph. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Dev Aujla is the CEO of Catalog, an insight and recruiting firm that has provided talent and strategy to some of the world's most innovative companies including BMW, GOOD Magazine, Change.org, and Planned Parenthood.

His writing and work have been featured in dozens of media outlets including the New York Times, Glamour, MSNBC, CBC and The Globe and Mail. 

He is the author of Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money and Community in a Changing World and 50 Ways to Get a Job: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Work on Your Terms. 

Image Copyright: Dev Aujla. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Adriane Franklin and David Peck talk about feminine hygiene, poverty and social justice, simple solutions, her desire for a more equitable playing field and why the little things matter.

Adriane Franklin is the volunteer creator and team leader of the Mississauga Days for Girls team.  She started the team in March 2016 after hearing about it the Christmas before and thinking about what a perfect fit it would be for her.  Adriane has extensive experience, particularly in working with teenage girls through her work at camps, a pregnancy support centre, coaching teams, tutoring and her position as a secondary school business and economics teacher.

One of her hobbies is sewing and she is very interested in and passionate about social justice issues.  She also freely discusses feminine issues like inequality and health issues and has a keen interest in bettering the world for girls as she raises two of her own. So, Days for Girls is a natural fit.

Days for Girls' focus is giving days of education and work back to girls in developing countries by providing them with durable, reusable feminine hygiene kits.  The kits are donated and sewn by a team of volunteers she's continuing to develop here in Mississauga and Oakville and will be distributed globally once assembled.  

Fore more information head here: www.daysforgirls.org

Image Copyright: Adrianne Franklin. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Greg Paul is a pastor and member, as well as the founder, of the Sanctuary community in Toronto. Sanctuary, a community in which people who are wealthy and people who are poor live, work and share their experiences and resources on a daily basis, makes a priority of welcoming and caring for some of the most hurting and excluded people in Canada's largest city, including people struggling with addiction, mental illness, prostitution, and homelessness.

Greg is the author of the recently released Resurrecting Religion and several other award-winning books: Simply Open; Close Enough to Hear God Breathe; The Twenty-Piece Shuffle; and God In The Alley.  He is the father of four children, and married to Maggie, who has three children of her own.

For more information please head here: www.sanctuarytoronto

Image Copyright: Greg Paul. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

Never before have individuals faced so much conflicting information about how to be healthy: a constant rotation of fad diets, extreme workout regimens and celebrity-endorsed supplements are regularly hyped as the latest cure for all modern ills. We also maintain a massive health care system that absorbs a steadily growing share of public spending. As health has increasingly come to occupy a prominent role in our lives and headlines, however, we've tended to ignore that many of the the most significant contributors to making and keeping us well lie outside both the medical system and our individual control—income, education, employment, housing, environmental factors and social supports.

In All Together Healthy, award-winning author Andrew MacLeod digs deep to discover how to build a healthy society, examines inequities within Canada and draws on international comparisons to assess why Canada's high spending on health care has failed to achieve better results. Meticulously researched and enlivened with interviews and personal stories, MacLeod explains the complexities of public health policy in an immediate and approachable way, making a passionate case for how best to maximize the health of the many.

In Canada, this is a moment of political optimism, where the path to a healthier society seems possible, but it is uncertain whether promised changes will happen. All Together Healthy defines what's at stake and articulates a vision of a future where the health and well-being of all citizens is of central importance.

Biography

Andrew MacLeod is the BC Legislative Bureau Chief for TheTyee.ca website. His first book, A Better Place on Earth (Harbour Publishing, 2015), won the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature.

He won a 2006 Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for news writing and was a finalist for a 2007 Western Magazine Award for best article in BC and the Yukon.

His reporting has appeared in Monday Magazine, The Georgia Straight, BCBusiness Magazine, 24 Hours, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Detroit's MetroTimes, Portland's Willamette Week and elsewhere. Andrew lives in Victoria, BC.

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Image Copyright: Andrew MacLeod. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound

Biography

Ajay Parasram is a transnational, multi-generational by-product of British empire living and working in K'jipuktuk, unceded Mi'kma'qi.

He is Assistant Professor in the departments of International Development Studies and History at Dalhousie University, where he researches and teaches on the broad significance of the colonial encounter and the colonial present, as well as a third year course in International Development Activism.

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Image Copyright: Ajay Parasram. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

Exit Music is a documentary film that travels the intimate and complex path of terminal illness. Ethan Rice was born with cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic illness that eventually leads to respiratory failure. At their home in a small upstate New York community, Ethan and his family live in constant uncertainty as the disease takes more and more away from them. While medical interventions continue to keep him alive well beyond his prognosis, 28-year-old Ethan questions day-by-day how long he is willing to fight and what his absence will mean to those he leaves behind.

With stunning access, the film closely follows Ethan's final months, weeks, days and hours and is witness to death's transformative influence on a family. Home video footage traces the bond between Ethan and his father Ed, a Vietnam veteran with PTSD who withdrew from the world to become a stay-at-home dad. Ed immersed Ethan in a world of art, creativity, and imagination and documented it all on camera, a hobby that provided relief from the fear of his son's prognosis and his own painful past. These archives show the progression of Ethan's illness over time and reveal Ed's obsession with preserving his son's memory. Even during his final days with Ethan, Ed had a camera in hand.

Interweaving home movies with Ethan's original music and animation, his story is an unflinching meditation on mortality and invites the viewer to experience Ethan's transition from reality to memory. In a culture that often looks away from death, Exit Music demystifies the dying process, a universal cornerstone of the human experience.

Biography

Cameron Mullenneaux is an independent filmmaker based in San Francisco. Her directorial debut, Exit Music (formerly How Do You Feel About Dying) is a co-production with ITVS and received additional support from LEF Foundation, The Visual Storytelling Consortium, Independent Filmmakers Project, and the San Francisco Film Society.

She directed and produced the short film Angelique for Conde Nast's digital Glamour brand. She has an MFA in documentary film production from Wake Forest University and a self-designed major in death and dying from Warren Wilson College.

For more info about the film head here.

Image Copyright: Cameron Mullenneaux. Used with permission.

For more information about his podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

Five Venezuelan women, from different backgrounds and generations, draw a portrait of their collapsing country that faces a significant social, economic, power, and political crisis in its 200-year history. 

Their lives and testimonies speak of the urgency in which the locals are plunged into. Each of them lets us inside of their lives as they face critical food and medicine shortages, rampant injustice, and widespread criminality. 

Their stories are a part of what's currently going on inside Venezuela.

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

Margarita Cadenas is a screenwriter, director and producer of French-Venezuelan nationality based in Paris, France. 

Before becoming a director, Margarita Cadenas produced numerous French commercials around the world and worked as a co-writer and producer for French television.

Learn more about the film here.

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Image Copyright: Margarita Cadenas. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Velcrow Ripper, Nova Ami and David Peck talk about the myth of Proteus, cynicism, grieving loss, submersive art, futurelessness and what wise and radical hope really looks like.

Synopsis

A poem for the planet, Nova Ami and Velcow Ripper's film Metamorphosis takes the pulse of our Earth and bears witness to a moment of profound change: the loss of one world, and the birth of another.

Metamorphosis captures the true scale of the global environmental crisis. Forest fires consume communities, species vanish, and entire ecosystems collapse. Economic growth, tied to increased speed of resource extraction, has created a machine with the capacity to destroy all life.

But this crisis is also an opportunity for transformation.

Through a tidal flow of stunning images, Metamorphosis carves a path from the present to the future, and offers a bold new vision for humanity and the world.

In Milan, architects design vertical forests, urban towers covered with trees and bushes that reduce CO2, produce oxygen, and give new life to the city. In Phoenix, Arizona, swimming pools are repurposed into self-sustaining gardens, lush with plants and fish that generate food for people. In LA, installing solar panels in underserved neighbourhoods provides cleaner energy to families who normally would not be able to access it.

Woven through these and other stories of creativity and reinvention from artists, scientists, thinkers, and young children are creative, systemic solutions for our planet, and for our communities as well.

From the deep ecologic connection that humans share with each other, a radical form of hope emerges, vibrant and alive, like a chrysalis splitting open to reveal some new thing ready to take flight. Metamorphosis cinematically delves into how humanity is being transformed in new ways by the environmental crises we have created.

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

Nova Ami creates socially relevant, thought-provoking films that inspire, educate, and empower. Her work has screened at international festivals including Hot Docs and IDFA, and has been broadcast on BBC, CBC, CTV, Super Channel, Vision TV, and SBS Australia. She directed the documentaries Say I Do (CTV, Vision TV), Secrets (CBC's The Passionate Eye), and Peacing it Together (Red Storm Productions), and was a producer on Occupy Love (Super Channel, Free Speech TV) and Army of One (BBC, CBC, SBS Australia). She was host, director, and writer on the technology and innovation television series The Leading Edge (Knowledge Network), and was host and segment producer of GVTV, a series about urban issues in Vancouver. She has a master's degree in Media Studies from the New School.

Velcrow Ripper creates powerful, cinematic feature documentaries that deal with the central issues of our times. His epic "Fierce Light Trilogy" began with Scared Sacred, winner of the 2005 Genie Award for best feature documentary, continued with 2008's award-winning Fierce Light and concluded with Occupy Love (2013). His first feature-length documentary, Bones of the Forest (1995, co-directed with Heather Frise) won nine awards, including Best of the Festival at Hot Docs and the 1996 Genie for best feature doc. He is well known for his award-winning sound design of such films as The Corporation (Best Sound, Leo Awards) and A Place Called Chiapas (Best Sound, Hot Docs, Leo Awards). 

Metamorphosis is his sixth feature film.  

For more info visit his site here.

Image Copyright: NFB, Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

In 1992, with Israeli-Palestinian relations at an all-time low and any communication punishable with jail time, a small group of Israelis and Palestinians gathered in Oslo – secretly and against the law. Although the meetings that came to be known as The Oslo Accords changed the Middle East forever, they were never officially sanctioned and were chronicled only by the negotiators' diaries.

In The Oslo Diaries, directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan (Censored Voices, Sundance 2015) bring us a riveting account of 1100 days of secret talks as told by the people who were there at the table.  The participants' detailed and often emotional entries recount the political intrigue, fiery rhetoric, unlikely friendships, and overwhelming desire for peace that were the heart of the negotiations.

Featuring never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews with key players - including the last on-camera conversation with former Israeli president Shimon Peres - the film recounts a geopolitical story, with a narrative voice that is personal and philosophical. Although politics ultimately doomed The Oslo Accords, the story's end for the people of Israel and Palestine remains unwritten.

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

Mor Loushy is an award-winning Israeli director. Her debut film, Israel Ltd (2009), premiered at IDFA and was broadcast worldwide. Her latest documentary, Censored Voices (2015), won an Ophir Award for best documentary. Censored Voices premiered at Sundance Film Festival and screened at BFI London and IDFA and released theatrically worldwide.

Daniel Sivan is an award-winning Israeli director/producer known for his critical social-political documentaries. His works include Censored Voices (Sundance, Berlinale, BFI), Offside (Tribeca, IDFA), and The Patriot. He recently edited Death in the Terminal (executive produced by Mark Boal and Megan Ellison)—winner of an Ophir Award and a Hot Docs best mid-length documentary award.

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Image Copyright: Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Matthew Shoycet, Ricki Gurwitz and David Peck talk about their new film The Accountant of Auschwitz, guilt, complicity, brainwashing and where one draws moral versus legal lines.

Synopsis

In the sleepy town of Luneberg, Germany, most days are quiet and uneventful. But one morning in September 2014, a 93 year-old man was charged with accessory to murder...of 300,000 people.

Seventy years earlier, Oskar Gröning was an accountant at Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp where more than 1 million people were murdered by the Nazis. As men, women and children spilled out from overcrowded trains, Gröning's job was to catalogue their valuables – belongings, he said, "they no longer needed".

After the war, Germany had little interest in prosecuting its own and the vast majority of perpetrators went unpunished. With a shift in legal thinking, Germany is now using a wider net to go after SS guards, complicit cogs in Hitler's killing machine. But by now, most have either died or are too sick to face prosecution. Oskar Gröning, however, is alive and healthy and deemed fit to stand trial.

The Accountant of Auschwitz is a compelling look at the race against time to prosecute the last living Nazi war criminals. The film features interviews with key players from the post-war trials and with Auschwitz survivors, sent to the camp as children, who testified at Gröning's trial. As we witness this final chapter of the Nazi war trials, The Accountant of Auschwitz asks if it's too little, too late or if it sends a powerful message to future generations. Is Oskar Gröning an accomplice to the biggest mass murder in history, or is Germany going after him to make up for the mistakes of its past?

Biography

Matthew Shoychet is a Toronto-based filmmaker.  He has worked in the narrative and documentary world of short films for many years.  As a co-founder of the production company Shoy Pictures, he has been able to explore various genres and projects in storytelling, advertising, charity work, and most recently Holocaust education. He is a graduate of York University's Film Production BFA, as well as Sheridan College's post-graduate in Advanced Television and Film.  

In 2013, he worked with acclaimed Canadian director Bruce McDonald on the video instalments for the musical concert Tumbling Into Light,  by The Flying Bulgars.  Shorts directed by Matthew include, Red Ether, (2011), Faker Chaser, (2012), Patrick: Evil Awakens, (2014) and Anne Frank: 70 Years Later, (2015). His newest project, The Accountant of Auschwitz, is his feature film debut. 

Ricki Gurwitz is a former producer at CTV News Channel. She started her career in New York, where she was a producer at WABC News Talk Radio. She moved back to Toronto in 2009 where she took over the production of the The Bill Carroll Show and The Jerry Agar Show on Newstalk 1010.

In 2011, Ricki made the switch to television, joining CTV News Channel as a segment and associate producer, working with reporters in the field to package news stories, and in the newsroom to cover the headlines of the day.

In 2015 Ricki left CTV to produce The Accountant of Auschwitz, her first feature documentary.

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Image Copyright: Matthew Shoycet and Ricki Gurwitz. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

Magic has become the latest investigative tool for scientists exploring human cognition, neurobiology, and behaviour. Across Canada, the US and Europe, our film follows researchers who are bringing magicians' tricks into the laboratory.  With impossible magic, amazing facts, and opportunities for viewers to participate in the magic, this extraordinary exploration peeks behind the curtain into a fascinating world where ancient magic meets modern science. 

Canadian magician and executive director of the arts organization Magicana, Julie Eng not only mystifies us with magic, she also takes us to Montreal's McGill University to meet Jay Olson. He is one of the scientists spearheading this novel and powerful approach to experimental psychology.  On the streets of Montreal Julie and Jay use card tricks to help us understand how magic can be used to explore human consciousness. But these simple tricks have given way to more elaborate experiments.

We join Jay at the Montreal Neurological Institute for an extraordinary demonstration involving an MRI machine that can apparently not only read minds but can even use its electromagnetic fields to manipulate your most private thoughts. 

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

Julie Eng is best described as a charming and enchanting performer who is passionate about her craft.

Both her peers and her clients consider this award-winning magicienne one of the up-and-coming performers of her generation. Her interest in magic began early; raised in a family of magicians, she has been a stage performer since she was a child. As she earned her Commerce degree, Julie's true love for the unique art of magic blossomed into a career. And now, for over three decades, Julie has brought her magical expertise to thousands of private functions, festivals, conventions and special events around the globe.

Julie is also the executive director of Magicana – an arts organization and registered charity dedicated to the study, exploration and advancement of magic as a performing art. Inside of her work with Magicana, Julie is one of the founding organizers for two unique community outreach programs, My Magic Hands and Senior Sorcery. Julie was also a part of another one of Magicana's productions, a theatrical show, Piff Paff Poof which was designed specifically to introduce the experience of the theatre to young families.

Over the years, Julie has developed a refreshing and distinctive style – a mix of elegance, surprise and humour – that has made her a popular entertainment choice. Whether on stage or mingling with her audience, Julie's magic is distinguished by her dexterous skill, confident presentation and professional manner. Julie has also received accolades from her fellow magicians, who have invited her to perform at magic conventions across North America. She has been featured in, MAGIC, Genii and The Linking Ring, internationally distributed trade magazine.

Julie's energetic performances are well suited to a multitude of venues: corporate receptions, trade shows and product launches, hospitality suites, conventions and client appreciation and development events. Julie's style, charm and repertoire have consistently garnered high praise from her clients, including some of the largest and most creative companies in Canada and the United States.

Daniel Zuckerbort's first experience in the Canadian film industry was in 1974 when, while studying history of science, religion and philosophy at the University of Waterloo, he got a summer job as a researcher for a documentary. Though only 20 at the time this was far from his earliest foray into the Canadian art scene. At the age of 15 he began working as an assistant in the technical crew at Theatre Passe Muraille. This was in 1969 and Passe Muraille was the centre of avante garde theatre.

In recent years Daniel's specifically theatre related work has been limited to directing actors in some of his productions as well as having made a number of documentaries about performers. A working magician himself for some years, he taught magic privately and for the Toronto Board of Education. He is also one of the founding board member of Magicana a registered charity dedicated to the exploration of magic as a performing art and to increasing the public's understanding and appreciation of this art. For more information see www.magicana.com

From the early 80s, through much of the 90s he was also involved managing the organization and activities of large groups of volunteers. These activities included helping organize neighborhood newspapers in Canada and abroad (including England, Scotland, Iceland, and Jamaica). Daniel is fluent in Spanish. His interests in the history of technology have come to a happy meeting in his current experiments in textile production, dye chemistry and casting metal (copper, bronze, brass, and iron) using kilns and crucibles that he has built himself.

His creative endeavors are not limited to film or the forge. He is a writer in a range of genres and one of his short writings was published in the Spring 2011 edition of the literary journal Descant.

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Image Copyright: Julie Eng and Daniel Zuckerbot and Reel Time Images. Used with permission.

For more information about his podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Biography

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for a new kind of Christianity – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program's Faith Working Group.

Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). His academic interests included medieval drama, Romantic poets, modern philosophical literature, and the novels of Dr. Walker Percy. In 2004, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree (honoris causa) from Carey Theological Seminary in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and in 2010, he received a second honorary doctorate from Virginia Theological Seminary (Episcopal).

From 1978 to 1986, McLaren taught college English in the DC area, and in 1982, he helped form Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, nondenominational church.

He is primarily known as a thinker and writer. His first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, (Zondervan, 1998, rev. ed. 2000) has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about ministry in a postmodern context. His second book, Finding Faith (Zondervan, 1999), is a contemporary apologetic, written for thoughtful seekers and skeptics. (It was later re-released as two short books, "A Search for What Makes Sense" and "A Search for What is Real.") "More Ready Than You Realize" (Zondervan, 2002) presents a refreshing approach to spiritual friendship. "Adventures in Missing the Point" (coauthored with Dr. Anthony Campolo, Zondervan, 2003) explores theological reform in a postmodern context. "A Generous Orthodoxy" (Zondervan, 2004), is a personal confession and has been called a "manifesto of the emerging church conversation."

His first work of teaching fiction, A New Kind of Christian, won Christianity Today's Award of Merit in 2002, and has become one of the pivotal texts for what is increasingly called Emergence Christianity. In A New Kind of Christianity, Brian articulated ten questions that are central to the emergence of a postmodern, post-colonial Christian faith. His 2011, Naked Spirituality, offers "simple, doable, and durable" practices to help people deepen their life with God.

Brian's Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? explores the intersection of religious identity, inter-religious hostility, and human solidarity. And his 2016 release, The Great Spiritual Migration, has been hailed as his most important work to date.

A frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs, he has appeared on All Things Considered, Larry King Live, Nightline, On Being, and Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. His work has also been covered in Time, New York Times, Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN.com, and many other print and online media.

Brian is married to Grace, and they have four adult children and five grandchildren. His personal interests include wildlife and ecology, fly fishing and kayaking, music and song writing, and literature.

To learn more about Brian visit his site here.

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Image Copyright: Hannah Davis and Brian McLaren. Used with permission.

For more information about his podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

In a country offering almost no treatment services despite a crisis of addiction, Laila Haidari took the highly unusual decision to found her own pioneering addiction treatment center and a restaurant where all of the waiters are recovering heroin addicts. Her brother Hakim, a solidly recovered addict, runs her free treatment center, which offers services for both men and women. As a former child bride she has known hardship in her 40 years. And she revisits that misery regularly as she mingles with drug-addicts, huddled under a Kabul bridge.

She encounters corpses. And she meets the near-dead, malnourished and sick who she tries to convince to accompany her to Mother Camp. "When I listen to their pain, I forget my own," says Laila, who has struggled to provide sanctuary for heroin addicts in the world's largest opium-producing country. Since she began her work, Laila has treated more than 2,000 people at her free center and has paid a high personal price for these successes. Her three children still live in Iran, where she grew up as a refugee during Afghanistan's Taliban rule. She has been separated from them for 10 years.

Due to the danger inherent in her work at the center, Laila cannot bring her children to join her in Afghanistan. As foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan and international aid dries up, Laila struggles to prevail over a crisis of addiction and a corrupt government in a country on the verge of collapse.

Laila at the Bridge is a deeply personal perspective on the global addiction epidemic in Afghanistan. The film follows the labor of love of one woman fighting to keep her center alive in the face of physical threats, governmental opposition and the departure of the international community from Afghanistan.

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

Elizabeth Mirzaei, Director and DP, was previously a teacher for blind students, the editor of a newspaper on a Russian island, and the manager of an expat bar in Kabul.

In 2011, she and her husband Gulistan Mirzaei began co-directing short documentaries for Al Jazeera's award winning Witness strand. Elizabeth was a director and cinematographer on the BBC's THE KILLING OF FARKHUNDA, which was nominated for a Royal Television Society Award, and a cinematographer on the Emmy-nominated WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS.

Her short films have also been shown before world leaders at the Oslo Conference on Women's Rights and she worked with the Tiziano Project to teach filmmaking to students in a Kabul high school. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

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Image Copyright: Elizabeth Mirzaei and Intuitive Pictures. Used with permission.

For more information about his podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

In this feature documentary we discover the dangerously funny cartoonist Mr. Fish, struggling to make a living in an industry that is dying out. In a world where consumerism is king, and opportunities are few, will this uncensored artist find a way to sell his art, or be forced to sell himself out?

Mr. Fish has been published in the LA weekly, Harpers, the Village Voice, The Nation and truthdig.com, as well as having his first book GO FISH published through Akashic press. F.X Feeney says, "He places you in the contradiction….He is a poet who's operating with a cartoonists pen, and with a satirist's goal of making you see further."

This intimate documentary follows the artist as he struggles to stay true to his creativity in a world where biting satiric humour has an ever-diminishing commercial value.

Undeterred, Mr. Fish meets his plight head-on and with an abundance of creative energy. In the course of the film he curates a show and produces a book on the history of the art form, develops an animation series, and stages a gallery show of new original fine art. But the demands of raising a family overtake his freelance opportunities, and Mr. Fish is forced to make devastating choices. Ultimately CARTOONING FROM THE DEEP END is about the kinds of compromises a radical artist makes (or refuses to make) while trying to live in a traditional society.

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

Pablo Bryant has been the Director of Photography on four feature documentaries and has shot additional photography on many other projects, including HBO's Cinema Verite' , and the documentary The Vanishing of the Bees, narrated by Ellen Page. He filmed in India and Nepal for the National Film Board of Canada's Tulku, which aired on CBC television, and finished shooting the documentary Crazy Wisdom in 2010.

In addition to his work as a cameraman he has produced, and directed a short documentary about the epidemic of homeless children in the US called Stand Up For Kids. He shot the DVD special features for MADMEN season 4 and 5, and finished shooting on When the Iron Bird Flies in 2012 and Began shooting on a feature documentary called Master Zhou in April 2013.

Learn more about Fish here.

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Image Copyright: Pablo Bryant. Used with permission.

For more information about his podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

Filmmaker Alba Sotorra embeds with this group of Kurdish resistance fighters gaining unprecedented access to the Commander and her troops, when Commander Arian is hit by 5 bullets, Sotorra helps nurse her back from the brink of death.

On the front line of the Syrian war, 30-year-old Commander Arian guides a female battalion towards the city of Kobane to release its people from the grip of ISIS in Alba Sotorra's empowering tale of emancipation and freedom. When the war in Syria broke, a group of women from the Kurdish resistance assembled the YPJ—Women's Protection Unit. Arian, who witnessed at a young age the nefarious treatment of sexual assault victims, leads the unit and dedicates her life to battling ISIS.

As the YPJ inches closer to their target, she implores her comrades to discover the true meaning of their fight: freedom for the next generation of women.

With unquestioned access to the commander and her troops, including delicate scenes of her recovering from multiple bullet wounds, Sotorra brilliantly crafts an enthralling portrait of a woman on a mission.

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

EAVE graduate Alba Sotorra has produced feature documentaries and fiction films from cinema and television since 2005. She graduated from cinema school in Madrid (UCM 2003) and has an MA on Cultural Studies (2008). She participated in SOURCES2 (2010), Berlinale Talent Campus (2011), Dokincubator (2014), IDFA Academy (2015) and EAVE Producers Workshop (2017).

She is member of PROA (Producers Association) and CIMA (Women Producers Association).

She is founder and director of the company Alba Sotorra.

To learn more about the film visit the site here.

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Image Copyright: Alba Sotorra. Used with permission.

For more information about his podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Synopsis

An inter-caste couple from India that had to break with their families in order to get married, a Japanese couple that was forced to marry and struggles with love, a

German postwar couple and two gay men from the United States, who were only allowed to marry after five decades, solving the associated legal problems by adopting each other.

Four couples from three continents talk openly and honestly about what it means to be together for 50 years or longer. Whatever brought them together, whether it was love or an arranged marriage, they all have one thing in common: they have devoted their entire life to this relationship.

Yasemin and Nesrin Şamdereli have made an amusing and touching, an entertaining and profound film about love. With surprising openness, their protagonists talk about sex and morals, love and society, children and partnership.

Watch the trailer here.

Biography

Yasemin Şamdereli was born and grew up in Dortmund, West Germany. After completing her Abitur exams she went straight to the HFF (University of Television and Film) in Munich. While studying, Yasemin worked alongside Jackie Chan on two of his international features as Assistant Director.

Her graduation film KISMET was screened at many renowned film festivals and also won the Short Tiger Award. After directing two films for television her first feature length cinema production ALMANYA: WELCOME TO GERMANY premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2011 and went on to receive numerous prizes including two German Film Awards for Best Script and Best Film.

Learn more about the film here.

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Image Copyright: Yasemin Şamdereli. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Watch the Trailer here.

Synopsis

Georg Friedrich Haas is arguably the most important living composer of symphonic music, but also a descendant of a Nazi family. His wife, whom he met through the dating site "OkCupid," is an African-American kink educator.

Their deep relationship is based on an open, yet controversial role-playing game between a white male master and a black female slave.

This groundbreaking film documents their lives between perversion, art, love, and radical self-determination.

Biography

Beatrice Behn is a freelance film critic with 10+ years of experience and senior film critic and editor-in-chief of Kino-Zeit, the largest German language film magazine for arthouse and independent film.

She is also about to graduate from Freie Universität Berlin with a Master's degree in film studies. Her fields of expertise are genre cinema, bodies & genders and feminist film studies. ̓THE ARTIST & THE PERVERT' is her first feature length documentary. Beatrice is based in Berlin, Germany.

René Gebhardt is a German art director, designer and filmmaker. He won numerous national and international creative awards for his works as an art director, 10 Lions at the ‚Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity' among them. ‚THE ARTIST & THE PERVERT' is his first feature length documentary film. He is based in Berlin, Germany.

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Image Copyright: Beatrice Behn and Rene Gebhardt. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Watch the Trailer here.

Synopsis

Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn't like. Here we meet five "digital scavengers" among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley whose job is to delete "inappropriate" content off the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical "cleaner" must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts.

Yet underneath their work lies profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism. Where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship?

The Cleaners struggles to come to terms with this new and disconcerting paradigm. Evolving from a shared social vision of a global village to a web of fake news and radicalization, the film charts the rise and fall of social media's utopian ideology.

Biography

HANS BLOCK - Director Hans Block is a German theater director, filmmaker and musician. He studied music at the University of Arts in Berlin and theater directing at Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. In 2014, Block became resident director and member of the Artistic Direction of the Box at Schauspiel Frankfurt. Productions there included "Mysterien – Unberechenbar werden" by Knut Hamsun, "Aufzeichnungen aus dem Kellerloch" by Fjodor Dostojewski and "Flankufuroto" by Bonn Park.

In 2014, he was invited to the festival "Radikal Jung" at the Münchner Volkstheater with his production "Austrian Psycho," which was awarded the Best Production Prize of the festival. His radio drama production "Don Don Don Quijote - Attackéee" was awarded as best production of Prix Marulić 2015.

MORITZ RIESEWIECK – Director Moritz Riesewieck is a German essay author, scriptwriter, theater- and film director. He studied theater directing at Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Before he studied some semesters of Economics as a fellow of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and worked as assistant director at Schaubuehne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin.

In 2014 he staged the piece "Woyzeck" by Georg Buechner in Mexico City. His Spanish/ German graduation production was invited to renowned Heidelberg Play Market. In 2016 Moritz Riesewieck was granted the state of Berlin's Elsa Neumann Scholarship for his innovative theater works which were shown at festivals in Berlin and Hamburg and most recently at Theater Dortmund.

In the same year Riesewieck presented a lecture performance about digital cleansing at re:publica Berlin and at Berliner Theatertreffen. His essay "Digital Dirt Work" was published by German publishing house dtv in September 2017. Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck work collaboratively under the label "Laokoon," named after the legendary Trojan seer who revealed the Trojan Horse as a dangerous fraud.

In their works Riesewieck and Block aim to reveal the Trojan horses of our time. Their projects, which they develop in various media forms, start with investigations and end up as striking, complex narrations.

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Image Copyright: Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion and Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Watch the Trailer here.

Synopsis

"Whatever has happened to Greece?" wonders filmmaker Håvard Bustnes out loud at the start of this disturbing documentary. In recent years, its image as a country of sunny beaches and friendly people has been overshadowed by political ideologies that are terrifyingly close to Nazism. With many prominent members of the far-right Golden Dawn party now behind bars, a daughter, a wife and a mother continue to propagate its message—and all three of them are seasoned enough to avoid any slips of the tongue during interviews.

The resulting material, supplemented with archive footage that leaves no room for doubt about the depraved side of this political party, reveals an ever-widening gulf between clear facts and political image-making. While it's frustrating that the women are so unbending in their views, it does illustrate how wearing blinders can derail an entire society.

Biography

Director Håvard Bustnes is a multi award winning director and producer. He holds a degree in Directing for Television from the College of Film and TV at Lillehammer, Norway. His new film Golden Dawn Girls premiered in the IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary in November 2017. Earlier films include Two Raging Grannies, Health Factory and Big John that have traveled around the world on cinema, TV and in the festival circuit.

The feature documentary Big John won the prestigious national Academy Awards Amanda as best theatrical documentary film. It was also awarded the Best Nordic Documentary Prize at Nordic Panorama. His films have been broadcast on ZDF (Germany), Arte (France), FR (Denmark), NRK (Norway), VPRO (Netherland), Chanel 8 (Israel), ORF (Austria), SVT (Sweden), YLE (Finland), TV4 (Ireland), TVP (Poland), Aljazeera Documentary Chanel (Qatar) and NHK (Japan). His films has been selected to more than 70 festivals all over the world, and two of his films had theatrical release in Norway, Denmark, Taiwan and South Korea.

To learn more about the film visit the site here.

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Image Copyright: UpNorth Film and Håvard Bustnes. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound. 

Watch the Trailer here.

Synopsis

Directed by Oscar-winner Louie Psihoyos, THE GAME CHANGERS tells the story of James Wilks — elite special forces trainer and winner of The Ultimate Fighter — as he travels the world on a quest for the truth behind the world's most dangerous myth: that meat is necessary for protein, strength and optimal health.

Executive produced by James Cameron and featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, THE GAME CHANGERS fuses live, groundbreaking science with cinematic stories of struggle and triumph showcasing some of the strongest, fastest and toughest athletes on the planet.

Meeting elite athletes, special ops soldiers, visionary scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes, what James discovers permanently changes his relationship with food and his definition of true strength.

Biography

Joseph Pace is a Canadian writer and researcher who has been focused on the future of food for more than two decades. Prior to his work on The Game Changers, Joseph coordinated What's On Your Plate?, a multidisciplinary report that examined the hidden costs of industrial agriculture in Canada on public health, rural communities, the environment, and animal welfare.

Joseph also played a pivotal role in helping to launch NutritionFacts.org, the first non-commercial, science-based website to provide free video updates on the latest in nutrition research.

To learn more about the film visit the site here.

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Image Copyright: Joseph Pace . Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Watch the Trailer here.

Synopsis

Over 50 per cent of Nigeria's nearly 200 million citizens don't have access to electricity. For Africa's largest energy producer and most populous nation, that number is shocking. Those dependent on the unreliable grid are limited to a few hours of power a day at best. Taking matters into their own hands, many households illegally and dangerously wire their homes by tampering with transformers.

While a bungling bureaucracy attempts to privatize the electrical system, an electrician risks his life on power poles, trying to provide for his daughter's education. His colleague in customer service has the more difficult task of going door to door collecting fees from disgruntled customers.

The problems are complex and systemic, but director Shasha Nakhai delicately balances the big picture of a country trying to advance its development with the compelling stories of blue-collar workers attempting to make better lives for their families. 

Biography

Shasha Nakhai is a filmmaker based out of Toronto with Compy Films and Storyline Entertainment. Her award-winning films have screened at festivals and aired on TV worldwide, been released on iTunes, gone viral and been awarded Vimeo Staff Pick and Short of the Week. Her last film with partner Rich Williamson, Frame 394, was shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short and was part of the CBC's new Digital Doc Shorts initiative. It had its world premiere at the 2016 Hot Docs Film Festival, and went on to win Best Canadian Short at NorthwestFest, Best Documentary Short at the Rhode Island Int'l Film Festival, Best Documentary Short at the Sidewalk Film Festival, the Audience Award for Best Documentary Short at the New Orleans Film Festival, and Best Documentary at the Charleston Film Festival. It was named one of TIFF's Top 10 Films of 2016, and was nominated for 2 Canadian Screen Awards.

Shasha was 1 of 8 emerging producers selected for the DOC Institute's Breakthrough Program in 2015, and was awarded Telefilm Canada's Pay It Forward Prize as part of the Hot Docs Film Festival's Don Haig Award.

Take Light is her first feature documentary. She also has a deep love for interactive storytelling, working as a brand ambassador for PlayStation for 8 years, and having been selected as the inaugural recipient of WIFT's Ubisoft Toronto Producer Mentorship program. She recently collaborated with DimensionGate on her first virtual reality project, Take Light VR.

Having graduated from Ryerson University's Broadcast Journalism program, Shasha was born in the Philippines, grew up in Nigeria and came to Canada as an international student in 2003

To learn more about the film visit the site here.

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Image Copyright: Storyline and Shasha Nakhai. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Biography

World-renowned mentalist Mysterion partners with mentalist Steffi Kay to create a mind reading experience that is truly breathtaking. Steffi brings a grace, flair and elegance to the mentalism she practises and with her vintage look, approach and style you will feel transported back to Vaudeville to the golden age of magic.

Mysterion has appeared on stages around the globe, with hundreds of television and media appearances to his credit. Together they showcase their special way of communicating, with a touch of humour and most importantly class.

Imagine your thoughts transferred across the room into Steffi's mind with 100 percent accuracy. Someone thinks of the name of their favourite film and Mysterion and Steffi are able to divine that movie. Spoons bend, drawings are duplicated and as a special treat The Sentimentalists are able to correctly identify items in the wallets and bags of audience members and random spectators. Corporate events, private events and functions, media appearances and tradeshows are just a few of the endless places The Sentimentalists have been working for the past few years.

The Sentimentalists are members of The Magic Castle in Hollywood CA, have recently toured sold out shows across the US and are the headline act regularly at Dave and Busters in the GTA, The CNE and Canada's Wonderland.

You can find out more info about them here.

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Image Copyright: The Sentimentalists. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Find out more info on Kathy here.

Biography

Kathy thinks about dying and death a lot. She knows it helps her to embrace life full on. She is an unconventional death educator with a passion for palliative care and improving the end of life care for all.

Kathy has been teaching and researching at Lakehead University for over a decade inspiring and challenging the future healthcare providers of tomorrow to be prepared to care for individuals who are dying and their families in all healthcare settings. She leverages her experiences as a cancer survivor and as a palliative care provider to challenge us to have the important conversations about dying, death and life.

Kathy strives to make an impact with her teaching, research and speaking to discover, share and communicate the information that we are all "dying to know."

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Image Copyright: Kathy Kortes-Miller. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Find out more info about the movie here.

Synopsis:

In late 1950s Ontario, seven-year-old Saul Indian Horse is torn from his Ojibway family and committed to one of  Canada's notorious Catholic residential schools. In this oppressive environment, Saul is denied the freedom to speak his language or embrace his indigenous heritage and he witnesses all kinds of abuse at the hands of the very people who were entrusted with his care. Despite this, Saul finds salvation in the unlikeliest of places and favourite Canadian pastimes — hockey.

Fascinated by the game, he secretly teaches himself how to not only play but develops a unique and rare skill. It's as if he has eyes in the back of his head and can see the game in a way no other player can. His talent leads him away from the misery of the school to a Northern Ontario native league and eventually the pros. But the ghosts of Saul's past will always haunt him. Forced to confront painful memories and revelations, Saul draws on the spirit of his ancestors and the understanding of his friends to gain the compassion he so sorely needs in order to begin healing.

Indian Horse is a survivors' tale that foregrounds the indomitable spirit of North America's indigenous peoples in the face of aggressive assimilation policies and racism. Saul Indian Horse's story can be a tool to help foster further compassion and understanding, and in the process, become universal.

Biography

Stephen Campanelli, started his career as a steadicam operator, when it was quite a rarity in Canada, and quickly became the most sought-after operator in the country. He was the first to combine "A" Camera operating and steadicam, and in doing so unlocked an entirely new filmmaking perspective that quickly peaked the interests of some of Hollywood's top directors including Stephen's boyhood idol: Clint Eastwood. Stephen first joined Clint on the Oscar and Golden Globe nominated Bridges of Madison County and has remained Clint's most trusted "camera eye" ever since.

They have collaborated on the Oscar winning films, Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, the Oscar nominated Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, and their successful films Gran Torino, Sully and American Sniper. They have just finished their latest, 21st collaboration,15:17 to Paris. Clint, and numerous other prominent directors, have entrusted Stephen with crucial on-set directorial decisions, and have relied on his expertise and guidance for many years now. After over 23 years by Clint's side, Stephen jokingly confesses to being a graduate of the "University of Clint Eastwood", having learned all of the maestro's directing secrets.

Stephen is following in the footsteps of a great story-telling director, who has shared with him his vast knowledge, not only of directing, but of acting, and what it is like to be an actor before a daunting camera.

Now, with Clint's blessing and the admiration of every cast and crew he has worked with, on the over 65 motion pictures listed in his resume, Stephen Campanelli has made the natural leap to the director's chair, having helmed two motion pictures, Momentum (2015), starring Olga Kurylenko, James Purefoy and Morgan Freeman. He is proud and honoured to present to you, his latest feature film, Indian Horse.

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Image Copyright: Stephen Campanelli and Indian Horse Productions. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Ann is a multiple award-winning Director, Producer and principal of Fathom Film Group. Her latest film, My Enemy, My Brother the short version was shortlisted for a 2016 Academy Award and nominated for an Emmy and was an 8-time winner of Best Short Documentary at international film festivals including Traverse City Film Festival, Grand Prize Winner of the Best Shorts Humanitarian Awards, the Sepanta Award for Best Short Film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42YFUwCnWzE

Her cross-platform project The Defector film and interactive was selected into 27 international film festivals, and was nominated for 6 awards, winning Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards. The Defector Interactive won the FITC Award, the Canadian Digi Award, and at the SXSW Interactive Festival.

With 20 years of experience, she has produced independent feature films, feature documentaries and delivered hundreds of hours of programming that have aired on CBC, TVO, HBO, ABC, CBC The Documentary Channel, Discovery Channel, HGTV, History Channel, SLICE.

She is currently working on several feature documentaries and cross-platform projects: Smart Drugs, The Superfood Effect and The Terrorist Hunter.

My Enemy, My Brother' is a feature length documentary about the real-life story of two former enemies from the Iran-Iraq war who become blood brothers for life. Meeting in Vancouver 30 years after Zahed, an Iranian child soldier saves Najah, a wounded Iraqi soldier's life, they are now about to embark on an emotional journey back to Iran and Iraq for the first time in 20 years.  

Their journey takes them into the heart of present-day conflicts in a region ravaged by war and ISIS. Their quest is a surprising affirmation of redemption and humanity. 

IMDB

Find out more about the film here.

And learn more about Ann Shin here.

Image Copyright: Ann Shin. Fathom Film Group. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Watch the Trailer here.

Synopsis

After his ingenious escape from a Turkish prison in 1975, Billy Hayes arrived home to a hero's welcome, instant celebrity and within a week had a book and movie deal for his story. From the moment it stunned the world at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978, 'Midnight Express' cemented its place in film history as an artistic and financial success, before becoming an indelible part of pop culture. But its lasting impact has been on Turkish people worldwide who still condemn the film as racist and blame Billy Hayes for defaming them and their country.  Despite warnings from family and friends, Billy returns to Turkey and faces a nation still haunted by the film and his own demons.

Biography

Sally Sussman Morina was born in Toronto, Canada. She attended the University of Southern California and received a Bachelor's Degree in Broadcast Journalism. Less than two years after her graduation, Sally was hired as writer on the NBC series, "Facts of Life." She wrote several episodes of that series while serving as a staff writer.

After leaving the sitcom business, Sally decided to pursue her lifelong passion for daytime soap operas where she was hired by William J. Bell, creator and head writer of "The Young and The Restless" as a story consultant and writer, two jobs she held for five years. During her years at Y&R, the series went from number six to number one in the Nielsen ratings, a position it has held ever since. Sally was responsible for many memorable storylines, including Dina's return to the Abbott family, Jack and Jill's affair, Katherine's face lift and Lauren being stalked and ultimately, buried alive. During her tenure, she was nominated for two Emmy Awards.

In 1989 Sally was approached by Brandon Tartikoff, the President of NBC to create her own show and after submitting a bible for the series, "Generations" was born. "Generations" immediately earned accolades from the press for creating the first fully integrated daytime serial. The series launched the careers of Vivica A. Fox, Kristoff St. John and Kelly Rutherford and featured veteran performers like Richard Roundtree, Taurean Blacque, Joan Pringle and Robert Hooks. During its two year run, "Generations" received numerous awards and attention including being written into the Congressional Record. The series was sold all over the world where it still retains a huge following. After its cancellation by NBC, the series was picked up by BET which ran it again. The show may be gone but it is definitely not forgotten.

After "Generations" Sally returned to daytime again as the Head Writer of "Days of Our Lives". During her tenure, she earned the show its first and only Writers Guild of America award for her storyline involving Sami's execution. Along with that story, she penned the Kristen/Susan murder mystery and the Mike/Carrie love story. She was also nominated for two Emmy awards, won the People's Choice and the TV Guide awards.

From "Days of Our Lives", Sally went to work for MTV where she was Executive Producer and Head Writer of the network's first evening serial called "Spyder Games". The series ran for 65 episodes and she was nominated for another Emmy Award.

Currently, Sally has many active projects in development including a documentary entitled "Midnight Return" which chronicles the turbulent relationship between Billy Hayes, the real life character in "Midnight Express" and the republic of Turkey. Sally and her husband returned with Billy to Turkey in 2007 thirty years after Billy Hayes escaped from prison.

Sally lives with her husband, Anthony Morina who is currently the Supervising Producer of "The Young & The Restless" and their 16 year old son, Adam.

To learn more about her work visit her site here.

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Image Copyright: Sally Sussman Morina. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Watch the Trailer and find out ore about the film here.

Synopsis

Living in the Future's Past is a beautifully creative and unique film that weaves evolution, emergence, energy, dark ecology and what some are calling the end of nature into a story that explains our place among the species of the Earth's household. Presented and narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges and directed by Susan Kucera (Breath of Life, For the Love of Tango, Trading on Thin Air) will have its World Premiere at Santa Barbara International Film on Thursday February 1st 2018.

Jeff Bridges presents this beautifully photographed tour de force of original thinking on who we are and the environmental challenges we face. The film upends our way of thinking and provides original insights into our subconscious motivations, the unintended consequences, what to do about our fossil slaves, and how our fundamental animal nature influences our future as Humankind. Living in the Future's Past feels like a bolt of lightning from both the future and the past and aims to put the viewer in the drivers' seat. It is a strikingly original take on who we are, where we came from and why our thoughts and actions are the way they are.

Bridges, alongside expert scientists and authors featured in the film include climate scientist and astronaut Piers Sellers, Being Ecological author Timothy Morton,conservationist and ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin, physicist Leonard Mlodinow, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark, and author Daniel Golemanamong others as well as a stunning original music score by Bridges collaborator Keefus Ciancia (Lady Killers, Thunderbird, Sleeping Tapes) and  additional music by composer Bob Holroyd and award-winning sound designer Ken Polk.

Biography

Susan Kucera has been working in film since she was nine years old, first as a camera assistant creating science films with her father for Britannica films, then as a screenwriter and commercial director.

One of the first owner/operators of the groundbreaking Red OneCamera she produced, wrote, directed and filmed Trading on Thin Air (2009), wrote, filmed, directed and co-produced For the Love of Tango (2014), directed, filmed and produced Breath of Life (2015).

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Image Copyright: Susan Kucera. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

In The Way Out, co-directors Michelle Shephard and David York, take an intimate journey with the mother (given the pseudonym Saeeda for her own protection), from Canada to Europe and Turkey and back again, as they work various channels seeking what a CSIS officer calls the "exfiltration" of Amina from inside the so-called Islamic State and into the custody of Canadian officials.

Michelle Shephard stood among the crumbling remains of New York City's World Trade Center on the night of 9/11 and asked, "Why?" So began her journalistic journey as the Toronto Star's National Security reporter, looking for answers in the streets of Mogadishu, Sanaa, to the mountains of Waziristan, refugee camps in Dadaab and Peshawar, the corridors of power in Washington and Ottawa, 200 km north of the Arctic Circle and flying to the world's most famous jail in Guantanamo Bay more than two dozen times.

Shephard has won Canada's top journalism's prizes – a three-time recipient of the National Newspaper Award (2002, 2009, 2011) and she was part of a Toronto Star team that won the Governor General's Michener Award for Public Service Journalism. She has collaborated on various films and was the co-director of Guantanamo's Child, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was voted as TIFF's Top Ten Films. She was awarded the Atkinson Fellowship in 2015 for a series called Generation 9/11, which will look at the recruitment of foreign
members for Daesh, the group also known as the Islamic State.

Shephard speaks frequently on issues of national security and civil rights and lives in Toronto with her photojournalist husband Jim Rankin, traveling frequently for both work and pleasure.

Watch the Trailer here.

To learn more about her work visit her site here.

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Image Copyright: Michelle Shephard. Used with permission.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

War Flowers is a multi-platform exhibition that will provide visitors with a unique immersive experience. It draws on letters written during World War I. Each letter home included a flower, poppies from Flanders and daisies from the Somme, picked from a battlefield and pressed between the pages. The letters written by Lt Col. Cant lie to his wife and children in Montréal, link to nine other key figures and provide perspectives on the Canadian contribution to the war effort. It is the story of humanity's unfailing ability to find beauty in war.

War Flowers: A Touring Art Exhibition curator Viveka Melki  is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. She has lived, worked and traveled in cultures where repressive regimes are dominant. From these experiences are born her projects around conflict - and the capacity of the human spirit for resilience. Reflecting on the subject of war, she says: "I dislike war because it runs in our blood and then our blood runs. My goal as an artist is to tell history in our time, with our voice as artists in this era. I bring my film experience into all my work so, in the end, I am a storyteller. I always ask one question when looking at Canadian history - what did it feel like? And if we can capture a fraction of that and bring you into that experience, then we have succeeded."

Born in The Gambia, West Africa of Brazilian/Lebanese descent, and educated in the UK before immigrating to Canada, Melki sees the world through a multi-cultural lens. In 2014, she directed the two-part series War Correspondence (Radio-Canada, RDI). Her feature-length documentary After Circus (2015) received acclaim after screenings at several North American film festivals, including Hot Docs in Toronto and the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal, as well as at the prestigious Sunny Side of the Doc Festival in La Rochelle, France. It was broadcast across Canada on CBC's documentary Channel in June 2016.

In April 2017, Viveka's new documentary, Carricks: In the Wake of the Irish, aired on Radio-Canada & RDI. It is the tragic story of the Carricks shipwreck in 1847 and one family's quest to find the truth – a quest that becomes the journey of the Francophone-Irish in Quebec. Viveka is currently working with the New Chapters Canada Council for the Arts on her new film, Alouette, about the Japanese POW camps during the Second World War.

http://vivekamelki.com/

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Viveka Melki. Used with permission.

James Day and I talk about Charles Manson, crime, criminals and psychopaths, prison as a state of mind, history, alternate facts, his new film and why the truth can sometimes be really ugly.

Trailer

Synopsis

Narrated by musician and director Rob Zombie, the documentary focuses on the Manson family murders told from Manson's perspective using never-before-seen case files, pictures and exclusive interviews with Manson himself from inside California State Prison.

Charles Manson: The Final Words includes Manson's eerie and disturbing conversations about modern society, justice, his decades behind bars, the Bernard Crowe shooting and the murders along with digitally restored audio recordings from the original investigations to reconstruct a path of events that led to the brutal slayings of movie star Sharon Tate and four of her friends on August 8, 1969 in addition to the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald "Shorty" Shea.

The documentary also includes compelling new interviews with members of the Manson family which reveal never-before-heard details that help uncover the real story and motives behind the grisly murder spree.

Viewers will hear from accused Manson family members Bobby Beausoleil, Barbara Hoyt and Catherine "Cappi" Gillies along with prosecutor Stephen Kay, defense attorney Gary Fleischman, music producer Phil Kaufman as well as other investigators and authors.

Biography

James Buddy Day is the writer and director of Manson: The Voice Of Madness narrated by Rob Zombie.

Manson: The Voice Of Madness is an official selection of the Red Rock Film Festival, Cuff Docs, and the winner of Best Dramatic Documentary at the Atlanta International Film Festival.

As a writer/director James' other feature credits include the character driven documentaries Goalie: Life And Death In The Crease (2015) and The Salvation Of Todd Bentley (2014).

James is the Showrunner of true crime series The Shocking Truth (2017-2018) featuring the shocking true stories behind some of the most famous movies of all times. The Shocking Truth can be seen on REELZ throughout the US, and other platforms throughout the world.

James' extensive production experience includes travelling throughout the world as a writer/director/producer for the series Expedition Earth (Nat Geo Wild), as well as travelling throughout North America as the Showrunner and director of the food adventure series Best In Chow for CMT Canada and Cooking Channel (USA). He was served as Showrunner and director for Wild Obsession (Animal Planet), World Of Hurt With Rowdy Roddy Piper, The Big Pitch (CBC), Cultureville (CBC), Culture Secrets (CBC), and the The Screaming Room (SCREAM TV) among many other projects.

James holds a Bachelor of Nursing and Health Studies (BN) from Mount Royal University, and a Post-Baccalaureate Diploma of Counselling Psychology from the Graduate Centre for Applied Psychology at Athabasca University.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

Image Copyright: Pyramid Productions. Used with permission.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Biography

Peter Miller was a banker; started six businesses; taught college entrepreneurship, social enterprise, and marketing; and has facilitated workshops and coaching for unemployed/underemployed and summer company students. He now is a strategic advisor and social enterprise coach, and has helped more than 720 start-ups and 20 social enterprises.

Carla Langhorst firmly believes that doing good business includes doing good. After receiving an MBA from the University of British Columbia she launched a social enterprise in 2009, hiring marginalized people, and is the co-founder of an e-learning organization that has helped over 100,000 small-business owners. She currently works as a consultant for both social enterprises and non-profits.

For more information about the book head here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Carla Langhorst and Self-Counsel Press. Used with permission.

Biography

Tarique Qayumi was born in Afghanistan and came to Canada as a refugee in 1983.

He attended the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia and graduate school at UCLA, where he completed his Screenwriting MFA and developed a strong interest in directing.

 After graduating in 2010, Qayumi was approached by TOLO TV, the largest television station in Afghanistan, to direct a docudrama series. Driven by two objectives-- to get in touch with his roots and to create Afghan-centered stories--Qayumi made the difficult decision to return to Afghanistan.

 While in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2015 he wrote, directed and produced Truth Unveiled, a sixteen part half-hour docudrama series; The Defenders, a six-hour drama miniseries; as well as Afghan Sesame Street, fifty half-hour episodes. During

this time, he also directed his first feature film, Targeting in Los Angeles, a psychological-thriller about a female American soldier who returns home from war. Upon returning to Vancouver, Tarique was one of five chosen from across Canada for the NSI Corus Diverse TV Directing Program.

Synopsis

Most Westerners' knowledge of Afghanistan begins and ends with the Taliban. Tarique Qayumi's Black Kite masterfully and succinctly recognizes a far richer and vastly more complicated history. Far from focusing on men on horseback or the privileged, Black Kite examines the impact of history on one family: how they quietly defy it and get swept up in it.

Steve Gravestock, TIFF Programmer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: . Used with permission.

Biography

With two films on the Oscar shortlist (Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, Promise to The Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman), Emmy-nominated (Promise to The Dead:  The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman) and Gemini-winning (Genius Within) Michèle Hozer has been working as a filmmaker and editor in Canada since 1987. 

To date, she has worked on more than 50 documentaries that have received accolades from the world's most prestigious film festivals, including the Sundance Film festival (Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire) and IDFA (West Wind The Vision of Tom Thompson) in Amsterdam. 

In 2015 Michele completed Sugar Coated, her first solo feature length documentary as director, editor, and producer. 

The doc was honoured with The Donald Brittain Award for Best Social and Political Documentary at the 2016 CSA's and is presently available on Netflix.

Synopsis

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Michèle Hozer (Sugar Coated), SponsorLand follows the day to day lives of a Syrian refugee family brought to Canada in the fall of 2015 by PEC Syria, a private sponsor group in Prince Edward County.

SponsorLand is a thoughtful, intimate take on the dynamic between newcomers to Canada and their sponsors who commit money, emotional and sweat equity to support resettlement and the family who while grateful, wonder what they have to sacrifice to fit in.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: TVO and The Cutting Factory. Used with permission.

IMDB

Trailer

Find out more about the film here.

And learn more about Ann Shin here.

Synopsis

My Enemy, My Brother' is a feature length documentary about the real-life story of two former enemies from the Iran-Iraq war who become blood brothers for life.

Meeting in Vancouver 30 years after Zahed, an Iranian child soldier saves Najah, a wounded Iraqi soldier's life, they are now about to embark on an emotional journey back to Iran and Iraq for the first time in 20 years.  

Their journey takes them into the heart of present-day conflicts in a region ravaged by war and ISIS. Their quest is a surprising affirmation of redemption and humanity. 

Biography

Ann is a multiple award-winning Director, Producer and principal of Fathom Film Group. Her latest film, My Enemy, My Brother the short version was shortlisted for a 2016 Academy Award and nominated for an Emmy and was an 8-time winner of Best Short Documentary at international film festivals including Traverse City Film Festival, Grand Prize Winner of the Best Shorts Humanitarian Awards, the Sepanta Award for Best Short Film.

Her cross-platform project The Defector film and interactive was selected into 27 international film festivals, and was nominated for 6 awards, winning Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards. The Defector Interactive won the FITC Award, the Canadian Digi Award, and at the SXSW Interactive Festival.

With 20 years of experience, she has produced independent feature films, feature documentaries and delivered hundreds of hours of programming that have aired on CBC, TVO, HBO, ABC, CBC The Documentary Channel, Discovery Channel, HGTV, History Channel, SLICE.

She is currently working on several feature documentaries and cross-platform projects: Smart Drugs, The Superfood Effect and The Terrorist Hunter.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Ann Shin. Fathom Film Group. Used with permission.

Biography

Miranda's first cinematic directorial debut was GREENLIT, a comedic documentary looking at the inherent hypocrisies surrounding Hollywood when trying to "green" a film set which debuted at SXSW in 2010. IFC International and Virgil Films picked it up for distribution.

Since then, she directed the award winning narrative short ANOTHER HAPPY ANNIVERSARY which after a successful festival run premiered on Shorts TV and is hosted at Jill Soloway's website Wifey. TV promoting female film makers.

Miranda also shot and directed The Behind the Scenes of James Gunn's SUPER and an episode of the web TV series FIRSTS.

Miranda's second documentary feature, THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST, is an intimate portrait of the controversial and discredited Dr. Andrew Wakefield. The documentary premiered on April 20, 2017 at the Manhattan Film Festival as the opening night film and won Best Documentary Feature. It played at the 2017 Downtown LA Film Festival and Bailey won Best Director - Documentary Feature. The film opened in theaters September 2017.

Over the last 14 years, Miranda Bailey has produced over 20 films including the Oscar nominated THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, James Gunn's SUPER and the Gotham Award Award-winning THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL. Miranda has been nominated twice for the Best First Feature Spirit Award - once in 2017 for Swiss Army Man and once in 2016 for The Diary of a Teenage Girl which she won.

As the CEO of Cold Iron Pictures, Miranda recently produced 2016 Sundance U.S. Dramatic Directing Award-winner SWISS ARMY MAN starring Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano, Oscar nominated director Joseph Ceder's first English language film NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER, starring Richard Gere, Michael Sheen, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Dan Stevens, Steve Buscemi and Josh Charles, and Mike Birbiglia's DON'T THINK TWICE, starring Keegan-Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs, Birbiglia, Kate Micucci, Tami Sagher and Chris Gethard.

Bailey starred in and produced many other films in a variety of genres including the cult hit DEAD & BREAKFAST, with Jeremy Sisto, Portia de Rossi, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan; the comedy THE OH IN OHIO, with Paul Rudd, Danny DeVito, and Parker Posey; WONDERFUL WORLD, starring Matthew Broderick; AGAINST THE CURRENT, starring Joseph Fiennes and Mary Tyler Moore; SUPER, starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page; EVERY DAY, starring Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt; the 3D horror film HELLBENDERS; the documentary SPINNING PLATES, which was released by her distribution company The Film Arcade, which she cofounded in 2012.

Synopsis

Who is the man behind the most highly controversial, intensely debated topics in modern medicine? In The Pathological Optimist, director Miranda Bailey brings us a character study of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, one of 13 co-authors of a notorious 1998 paper in the UK medical Journal The Lancet, but who became the very public face of what has come to be known as "The Anti-Vax Movement." An expat from Britain who currently resides in Austin, Texas, Wakefield allowed Bailey and her team to follow him and his family for five years beginning in 2011 as he fought a defamation battle in the courts against the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer.

The results of that case – and the self-reflection, pronouncements, and observations of Wakefield, his legal team, wife, and his children – create a complex and incisive look at one of our era's most fear-provoking and continuously provocative figures.

The Pathological Optimist takes no sides, instead letting Wakefield and the battles he fought speak for themselves.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Miranda Bailey and The Film Arcade. Used with permission.

Biography

Adam Garnett-Jones - Co-writer and Director

Adam has written and directed a series of award-winning films that toured the international film circuit from Toronto to L.A., Sydney, Berlin and Beijing. Not content to work only in film, Adam has also distinguished himself as a television writer. He wrote scripts for the series "Cashing In" and "Mohawk Girls" He also had a hand in creating the upcoming series, The North End with Big Soul Productions.

Adam released his first dramatic feature-length film, Fire Song, at the Toronto nternational Film Festival in 2015. Fire Song went on to win the Air Canada Audience Choice Award at ImagineNATIVE, the worlds largest Indigenous Media Arts Festival. FireSong also won the Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature at Reel Out, the People's Choice Award for Best Film at Rainbow Reels, and both the RBC Audience Choice Award and the Jury Prize for Best Canadian Film at the Queer North Film Festival. Fire Song can be seen on Netflix USA.

Sarah Kolasky - Producer/lead actor/co-writer

Sarah is an actor and producer from Toronto, Canada. She plays Lauren in the feature film Great Great Great, which she produced and co-wrote with her long-time collaborator, Adam Garnet Jones. She also produced and acted in the short film, LIAR, which premiered at the prestigious 2012 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX. Other producing credits include the short films A Small Thing (TIFF '08) and Cloudbreaker (TIFF '06). Sarah is also the Chair of the Breakthroughs Film Festival, the only festival in Canada dedicated to showcasing short films by emerging female directors. She received a BFA in Film Studies from Ryerson University, and is one half of the sketch comedy duo Ex-Adults.

Synopsis

Great Great Great is a dark comedy about the uncertainty in long-term relationships. In the span of Lauren and Tom's five-year relationship, they've never had a fight. Their sex life is fine. They get along fine. Everything points to marriage, until Lauren suddenly sees a lifetime of "just fine" yawning ahead of her, and it immediately makes her hungry for a better, fuller future. She just has to decide what "better" really means.

One moment Lauren resolves to double down on her commitment to Tom, and the next moment she is ready to blow the whole thing up. So, Lauren does what any reasonable person would do - she does not choose. She does both. In a doomed attempt to have everything she wants without giving anything up, Lauren simultaneously starts an affair with her boss, rents a bachelor apartment, and asks Tom to marry her. When they start to plan the wedding, and her no-strings affair gets complicated, Lauren struggles to save what is most important to her before she loses it all.

Great Great Great is a deeply relatable portrait of a woman who makes us squirm with discomfort while asking us to love some of the most unlovable parts of ourselves.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Adam Garnett Jones and GirlBoy Productions. Used with permission.

Synopsis

The new investigative series Hunting Nazi Treasure takes viewers on an epic search across four continents to locate valuable objects and artwork missing since the Second World War and return them to their rightful owners.

The series chronicles the systematic looting by the Nazis, and provides new insights into the motivations of top Nazi leaders like Hitler and Goering, and explores how artwork and cultural artifacts are targets during times of war.

With hundreds of thousands of stolen treasures still missing to this day, including a painting by Italian master Raphael estimated to be worth upwards of $100 million, a $2 billion hoard of stolen Italian gold, and the legendary Amber Room from the Catherine Palace in Russia, the search into these historically significant "cold cases" is comprised by a team of present-day investigators. The team is led by Robert Edsel, author of the New York Times #1 bestselling book-turned-movie The Monuments Men, and Founder and Chairman of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, investigative journalist Conor Woodman, Second World War historian James Holland, along with top experts on the Nazi era. The hunt takes the team across 14 countries; searching for items hidden in caves, castles, museums, and even under water while gaining access to Nazi dossiers, archives, and declassified intelligence reports.

As the series unfolds, the viewer is introduced to Hitler's grand plan to become "the curator of the German people" atop one of the world's most spectacular art collections, and the desperate last-act by the Nazis to hide an unimaginable trove of gold, most likely in the Bavarian Alps.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Saloon Media. Used with permission.

Biography

Erin Millar is Discourse Media's editor-in-chief and CEO. She has received multiple awards for journalism innovation, including being named 2015 Bob Carty Fellow by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Storyteller-in-Residence at Ashoka Canada, and an AmEx Emerging Innovator.

She has hosted talks and workshops across Canada and internationally, including at the Canadian Association of Journalists national conference and Italy's International Journalism Festival.

She has reported from over a dozen countries for Canadian and international publications. She taught journalism at Quest University Canada and Langara College. She is a trustee of the Uncharted Journalism Fund and serves on the board of the National Magazine Awards Foundation.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Erin Millar and Discourse media. Used with permission.

Biography

Unexpected texture, sounds and a signature musical personality are the hallmarks of British film composer Rolfe Kent, who has scored more than 50 films, including Academy Award nominated Up in the Air (for which he won a Golden Satellite award), Sideways (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award in 2007), Labor Day, Bad Words (Jason Bateman's directorial debut), Dom Hemingway, About Schmidt, Election, Mean Girls, Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde II, Wedding Crashers, The Matador, Reign Over Me, The Hunting Party, and Thank You for Smoking. Kent also composed the Emmy-nominated main title theme for the Showtime hit, Dexter.  In 2012, he received the Richard Kirk award for career achievement.

Born in England into a non-musical family, Kent intuitively felt at age 12 that he wanted to be a film composer, although his early musical training was brief and not so formal.  Citing Jarre's Lawrence of Arabia and Morricone's The Good, The Bad and the Ugly,  as inspirations, Kent took the advice of an early music teacher to avoid rigid  course work that would dampen his enthusiasm.  He followed an entirely different path and, taking counterpoint to what is often cited as culture mired in cynicism, profited from his early course work in theology to relate it to music.  After enrolling in psychology sutdies at Unviersity of Leeds in Yorkshire, Kent's musical career was casually begun at a dance club when the director of a play offered him a chance to "do" the music.  His jump start was his composition for a stage musical Gross at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a springboard for Authors, composers and performers.

In the confines of his musically busy studio, one can immediately see why his musical personality is as distinct and his own.  Constantly on the go, adventurous and curious, Kent has developed a style that is not only distinct, but indicative of his aversion to the-anticipated-score in tone, texture and rhythm.  The walls are lined with many familiar and many more unfamiliar instruments, gingerly handled and gleefully demonstrated for their sonic qualities.  Among his collection are the Indonesian percussion instrument the angklung, the shawm (first used in military maneuvers as a psychological weapon), the melodica, used for the light, soothing effect in Kent's jazz-infused score for his Golden Globe-nominated Sideways, and an instrument he discovered and cannot name that sounds like the world's beaches at their most romantic high tide... combined.

Kent has the distinction of attracting and sustaining relationships with directors as popular and diverse as Alexander Payne, Mark Waters, Jason Reitman, Burr Steers, and Richard Shepard.

Synopsis

"Alexander [Payne, writer/director] asked for the score to be beautiful classical music," Kent described.  The composer wanted to avoid movie-score clichés and took a different route.  "I figured a Kubrickian approach was best, where the music sounds like it existed outside of the film, and was discovered to match the scene perfectly."  

Known for using unexpected textures, sounds and his own signature musical personality this opened the floodgates for Rolfe.  "As ever, Alexander was open to hearing unexpected sounds, so when I threw him the curve of an opera aria sung in Norwegian, or some bagpipes.  He loved it."

In addition to writing the original score for the film, he also co-wrote the original song "A Little Change In The Weather," performed by The Swingles.

Trailer

More Info Here about Rolfe and his work.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: TVO and The Cutting Factory. Used with permission.

Biography

Toronto-based director and screenwriter Barry Stevens, who has also worked as an actor, has extensive experience in writing TV drama, and has successfully transported his storytelling skills to his documentaries. He won the Writers Guild of Canada Award and the Audience Award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival for Offspring, an entertaining account of the search for his biological father. 

The Bomber's Dream, a critical examination of aerial bombing, was also inspired by an unusual family fact: during WWII some of his British relatives were bombed by German members of his extended family.

He co-wrote the International Emmy Award-winning documentary Gerrie & Louise, about the South African Truth Commission and was Executive Producer and directed all 24 episodes of the documentary series War Story. 

Synopsis

From Emmy-nominated and CSA-Award Winning production company Matter of Fact Media, Undercover Jihadi premieres on TVO. Following Mubin Shaikh, a former extremist militant turned undercover counter-terrorism operative as he speaks with former extremists, counter-terrorism experts and families of victims, Undercover Jihadi presents a thorough and international examination of the threat of extremism, the possibility of de-radicalization and actively challenges misconceptions of both Islam and Muslims.

 "This is an important and timely documentary, that offers some insight into the process of radicalization of terrorists, through the eyes of Mubin Shaikh," said Vanessa Dylyn, producer of Undercover Jihadi. "We hope that viewers of the film will be inspired to become involved in their local communities to address the problem of youth radicalization, and to foster understanding between people of differing ethnicities and religious faiths."

As a government intelligence informant, Shaikh risked his life to stop the Toronto 18, a sophisticated homegrown terrorism plot with links to the US and the UK. His court testimony sent eleven men to prison. Shaikh is now a sought-after consultant to international intelligence organizations involved in combating terrorism and jihadism.

"TVO documentaries bring audiences nuanced and in-depth stories. They explore social, economic and political issues through a uniquely personal lens," said Natasha Negrea, TVO Executive Producer, Documentaries. "Undercover Jihadi presents Mubin Shaikh's extraordinary personal experience and offers an important perspective to the conversation around violent extremism."

Award-winning Director Barry Stevens has made numerous films about war and conflict. With Undercover Jihadi, he follows Shaikh as he explores how different countries —including the United States, France, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom— are dealing with extremists (including both neo-Nazis and violent jihadis) and how they try to divert and de-radicalize them.

"I wanted to explore the problem that confronts us in the 'West.' The first reaction is often to enhance surveillance of Muslims, and even to ban Muslims from entering Western countries. But before someone has committed a crime, or when they are in prison, it is possible to engage with people who have extremist ideas and change their direction," said Stevens.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: TVO and Matter of Fact Media. Used with permission.

Biography

Filmmaking duo David Redmon and Ashley Sabin together produce, direct, photograph and edit critically acclaimed cinematic documentaries that have screened internationally in festivals and on television worldwide at Sundance, Toronto, Cinema du Reel, Rotterdam, Visions du Reel, RIDM, MoMA, and Viennale Film Festivals and on PBS, POV, BBC, CBC, DR, ARTE, and NHK.

Their body of work includes four recent "animal ethnography" films based in the world of donkeys and funded by the Leverhulme Trust: Sanctuary (2017), Do Donkeys Act? (2017), Choreography (2014), and Herd (2015); two dream/memory cinema poems Sentient 1 & 2 (2015/2016); a 6 minute snowbound ballet mécanique, Neige (2016); a suite of U.S. post-industrialization themed films set inside three interconnected factories on the coast of Prospect Harbor, Maine: Downeast 

(2012), Night Labor (2013), and Kingdom of Animal (2012); a feature documentary about the labyrinthine world of teenage modeling in which a New York based scout recruits Siberian teenagers to the Tokyo model market Girl Model (2011); a film linking China and New Orleans through globalized manufacturing of cheap throwaway goods for American leisure pursuit, Mardi Gras: Made in China (2005) and two "carnivalesque" character driven films set in Louisiana Kamp Katrina (2007) and Invisible Girlfriend (2009). Lastly, set on the U.S. Mexico border, a longitudinal love story about family relationships and the meaning of "home" Intimidad (2008), which has been described as "a documentary fairytale of truly humbling proportions." 

A former Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University with a PhD in sociology from the University at Albany, State University of New York, David Redmon is now a lecturer in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent, UK. 

A Fulbright Scholarship recipient, Ashley Sabin earned a M.F.A. at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec and graduated with high honors in Art History, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY.

Synopsis

"Burned, beaten, abandoned, donkeys look back at us humans with indifference, and bray." David Redmon and Ashley Sabin's DO DONKEYS ACT– filmed over 5 years––subtly subverts the notion of the "dumb beast" as it captures donkeys communicating emotionally with each other in the midst of healing from human cruelty and neglect. A poetic text threads through scenes "acted" by donkeys, a rhythmic script commentary voiced by Willem Dafoe.

DO DONKEYS ACT'S ethno-poetic-animal-fiction takes its playfully self-reflexive cues from Jean Rouch and Chris Marker. Encouraging us to respect a major language barrier we might not otherwise consider––the mystery and intrigue of donkey utterances––DO DONKEYS ACT invites us to "step into their shade, listen closely" as we attune to a series of dramatic performances in which we eavesdrop on donkeys speaking amongst themselves.

Reclaiming the donkey from the indignity of a centuries old master slave relationship in which the dominant image of the donkey has been negative (stubborn, buffoon, jackass, laborer, trickster and fool), DO DONKEYS ACT elevates a denigrated and degraded beast to the role of lead actor and performance artist. To paraphrase Marina Abramovic, the donkey is present.

Trailer

Biography

Mila Aung-Thwin is co-founder of EyeSteelFilm. After completing his studies at McGill University in 1998, he began working with maverick filmmaker Daniel Cross on the feature documentary S.P.I.T: Squeegee Punks in Traffic, learning the ins and outs of documentary filmmaking on the streets of Montreal with a squeegee punk named Roach. In order to take advantage of Canadian tax incentives, they founded a production company and called it "EyeSteelFilm" because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

 After flirting with other titles such as "cinematographer" (Too Colourful for theLeague), "co-director" (Chairman George), "director" (Bone, Music for a Blue Train) and "Office Drywall Consultant" (various walls), he has decided to just go with "Producer"and stop worrying about it.

 Most recently, Aung-Thwin produced the feature documentaries Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, Rip: A Remix Manifesto (IDFA audience Choice Award Winner), Up the Yangtze (Genie award winner) and Last Train Home (IDFA Feature Documentary Winner). In addition, he serves as the President of the Rencontres International du Documentaire (RIDM), Montreal's international documentary festival.

Synopsis

"A futuristic energy source that could indefinitely supply the world's power requirements provides the backdrop for this absorbing documentary." – The Hollywood Reporter

Clean, safe and unlimited power has been an obsession for scientists and inventors for centuries, and an underlying preoccupation for our society as a whole. Since the 1940s, when we first understood how the sun creates energy, nuclear fusion has been energy's holy grail.

For decades, fusion has been delayed and thwarted by failure, miscalculation, fraud and politics. It has been maddeningly always just out of reach, which seems to make people obsess over it all the more. "Fusion is the energy of the future… and always will be," goes one old joke.

But today, fusion is being pursued with a renewed zeal, mostly because we've never needed it like we do now, and there are 37 countries currently collaborating to build the biggest experiment ever, in order to prove that fusion is viable.

Will this finally succeed? Or will the project collapse under its own massive complexity? The film chronicles the work of the passionate scientists who are struggling to make it work.

"It's rare to find people who work on projects that are designed to last decades, and these scientists would be happy if it worked in a century from now," says co-director Aung-Thwin. "So on a personal level, this is a deep sacrifice – but they are doing it for the chance that it helps all of humanity."

Trailer

Her new show Exponential will be on Sirius XM (channel 167) and her new podcast on the Antica Network. Look for it and listen in.

Biography

Award-winning business journalist and best-selling author Amanda Lang has been covering business in North America for 25 years. Lang is the host of Exponential with Amanda Lang, airing on Sirius XM and as a podcast. She has also been an anchor for Bloomberg Television Canada, on Bloomberg North with Amanda Lang. Lang was CBC's senior business correspondent, reporting for its flagship nightly news program, The National, and host of The Exchange with Amanda Lang, a daily business program airing on CBC News Network. For five years before that Lang hosted The Lang and O'Leary Exchange, with Kevin O'Leary. Prior to that the pair co-hosted SqueezePlay, on BNN, for 6 years.

Lang is also a best-selling author. "The Power of Why," (HarperCollins, October 2012) explores the connection between curiosity and success. "The Beauty of Discomfort" (HarperCollins, April 2017) examines how difficult change can be, and set out strategies for how to achieve it.

Lang studied Architecture at the University of Manitoba, before becoming a journalist. Her first job in journalism was for the Globe and Mail, and subsequently Lang joined the Financial Post newspaper, where she became the paper's New York correspondent. In New York she made the leap to television, where she first was part of the team that launched BNN and before long wound up at CNN as a reporter and anchor. She returned to Canada in 2002.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Amanda Lang. Used with permission.

Biography

Pat Mills's first feature film, the dark comedy GUIDANCE, which he wrote, directed and starred in, had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Picked up by Strand Releasing in the US and Search Engine Films in Canada, Guidance was theatrically released in Summer 2015. Hailed as a "GRADE A" comedy by the Los Angeles Times and a New York Times Crit ics's Pick, it currently holds a 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Guidance is now available on DVD, Netflix, Vimeo, Amazon, TMN, HBO and itunes. His performance as David was nominated for an Actra Award for Outstanding Male Performance.

An alumnus of TIFF's Talent lab and TIFF Studio, Pat was named winner of TIFF's Pitch This! for his second feature DON'T TALK TO IRENE. The screenplay won BEST COMEDY SCREENPLAY at the Austin Screenplay Competition. The film stars Michelle McLeod, Bruce Gray, Scott Thompson and Geena Davis.

More at www.pat-mills.com

Synopsis

Irene is 16, fat, friendless and tired of being a loser, but she's determined that this year is going to be different — Irene is  going to become a cheerleader. But when she's the victim of a cruel prank, Irene is suspended on her first day back at school Irene - along with bullies Robbie and Sarah - and must endure two weeks of community service at the local retirement home.

Irene befriends Charles, a depressed retired boxer who figuratively punches away her low self esteem. In his own grumpy way he convinces her to follow her dreams and instead of becoming a cheerleader, she becomes the next best thing — a choreographer. She signs the seniors up to audition for her favourite reality show "Total Talent Showdown".

Keeping the plan a secret from her mother, Irene finds confidence for the first time in her bond with the seniors, teaching them how to dance for television broadcast. What she doesn't know is that a very jealous Robbie and Sarah are secretly plotting their revenge—and they will stop at nothing to kill Irene's dreams of reality show stardom.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Pat Mills and Alyson Richards Productions. Used with permission.

with

Andrucha Wadddington, Mini Kerti and Lucas Paraizo

Andrucha, Mini, Lucas and Face2Face host David Peck talk about their new medical TV series Under Pressure, public versus private health in Rio de Janeiro, infrastructure, science versus faith, corruption and why there is hope. 

Synopsis

An ambulance siren marks the beginning of another tough day for the medical staff of a Rio de Janeiro public hospital. In between patients, they struggle with the constant challenges of the chaotic environment of an ER in the outskirts of the city, crossing every line to keep patients alive in a hospital that is running out of supplies.

Anguish and personal drama are bubbling over among the people who come to hospital looking for help. The desire to save lives is what drives the doctors in Under Pressure, an authentically Brazilian medical drama.

Amid the daily struggles, two people tormented by the ghosts of their past, find solace in one another the soothe their ailing souls.

Under these rough conditions, the surgeons, each with their particular quirks, each a specialist in their own field, come together to make up a team of hero doctors. These heroes are willing to do whatever it takes to help those in need and offer even a glimmer a hope to people who come in every day with their lives at risk. From directors Andrucha Waddington and Mini Kerti, Under Pressure comes out of the Andrucha Waddington feature film of the same name.

Co-produced by Globo and Conspiração Filmes, created by Luiz Noronha, Claudio Torres and Renato Fagundes, the film is based on an original concept by Mini Kerti and freely inspired by Marcio Maranhão's, Sob Pressão – A Rotina de Guerra de um Médico Brasileiro

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Globo and Conspiração Filmes. Used with permission.

Biography

Chandler Levack is an award-winning writer and director. After being selected for a screenwriting seminar at the University of Toronto taught by Semi Chellas (Mad Men) and Patricia Rozema (Grey Gardens, Into the Forest), she wrote the coming-of-age comedy Felt Up, based on an article written for her college newspaper where she investigated the world of professional pickup artists. A music journalist for SPIN and The Village Voice whose writing has been nominated for multiple National Magazine Awards, Chandler transitioned into filmmaking after graduating from the CFC Writer's Lab in 2012, where she wrote the short film Lunchbox Loser, which has screened at festivals world-wide including the Portland Women's Festival, Cannes Short Film Corner, Canadian Film Festival, and the Lahore International Children's Festival.

Jesse Todd "Evan" is a new actor whose first lead role was as Evan Strocker in the short film We Forgot to Break Up. Jesse also appeared in the film Cave Small Cave Big by Joele Walinga. He has done a number of live comedy performances including Feminist Live Reads Presents: Mean Girls, and Toronto Pride 2016 Stand Up Comedy programming.

Synopsis

We Forgot to Break Up reflects the heartache in encountering the people from your past, while the song remains the same. In this backstage drama, directed by Chandler Levack, written by Levack and Steven McCarthy, and produced by Nicole Hilliard-Forde and Matt Hilliard-Forde of Motel Pictures, Evan Strocker (Jesse Todd) returns to see the band he used to manage after a painful three-year hiatus.

Times have changed and the band members of Heidegger have gravitated towards lives in Los Angeles and as new parents. Evan has also undergone a radical change, now proudly living as a trans man. As he encounters each members of the band moments before their sold out show, he'll find a way forward towards self acceptance and love, especially as he encounters his ex boyfriend Lugh.

Adapted from Kayt Burgess' novel Heidegger Stairwell (winner of the 3-Day Writing contest), the film makes new myths out of Canada's indie rock heritage with raw humour and a landmark performance from trans newcomer Jesse Todd.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Motel Pictures Inc and Chandler Levack. Used with permission.

Biography

Mina Shum is a Hong Kong–born, Vancouver-raised filmmaker who studied theatre and film production at the University of British Columbia.

Many of her films have played at the Toronto Film Festival, including her short Me, Mom and Mona, which was awarded a Special Jury Prize; her feature debut, Double Happiness, which won the award for Best Canadian Feature; the films Drive, She Said and Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity; and the Canada's Top Ten Film Festival selection The Ninth Floor. 

Synopsis

"Mina Shum directs an all-star cast — including Cheng Pei Pei, Sandra Oh, Tzi Ma, and Don McKellar — in her latest feature, about a devoted wife and mother (Pei Pei) who is forced to reassess her reverence for her husband after she finds another woman's thong in his laundry.

In Meditation Park, Mina Shum returns to the themes that propelled her early work. The film opens with Maria (Cheng Pei Pei) hosting a birthday celebration for her workaholic accountant husband, Bing, (Tzi Ma). Maria reveres Bing and remains in awe of the sacrifices he has made for the family, so much so that she even respects his insistence that she not speak to their son.

But when she finds evidence that Bing may not be the perfect person she believes him to be, she's forced to consider her world in a radically different light. Maria embarks on a journey of self-discovery by engaging with the world around her, something Bing has always discouraged. She befriends a group of local eccentrics and a rather shady neighbour, Gabriel (Don McKellar). Maria soon realizes that people's lives are much more complicated than Bing has led her to believe.

Shum exhibits genuine compassion with her insight into the experiences of first-generation immigrant women. Meditation Park is a charming and generous film."

With thanks to Steve Gravestock - TIFF

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Mina Shum and Thoughts From The Asylum. Used with permission.

Khan is a filmmaker, film festival director, festival strategist and film educator from Canada. Born in Pakistan, Khan believes in cinema as a catalyst for change. He hopes to make films that shed light on subjects that are ignored by the mainstream media.

He is interested in realism in cinema and the new wave in South Asian cinema, yet not restricted to any one cinematic genre. As a gay man, Filmmaker Arshad Khan explores his troubled relationship with his devout, Muslim, Pakistani father Abu. Khan documents his struggles with his sexual identity as his Muslim parents attempt to fit into Canada.

Using family archives, pictures and movies, ABU is a revealing and deeply affecting portrait of a family's tug-o-war between conservatism and liberalism that has greater implications for those choosing the west as their home.

ABU is a journey to the centre of a fragmented family while they grapple with religion, sexuality, colonialism and migration. Through a tapestry of narratives composed of family footage, observation and classic Bollywood films, gay-identifying Pakistani-Muslim filmmaker Arshad Khan takes viewers through the tense relationships between family and fate, conservatism and liberalism and modernity and familiarity. Hidden within the cabinets of my parents homes, from Lahore to Mississauga, are an enormous archive of family films capturing the days of my youth and teenage-hood.

As I sat to write a film about a Pakistani immigrant girl with magical powers living in Mississauga, another story kept interrupting the narrative: it was the story captured on those tapes, it was the story of my family, my youth and my "abu". My father had recently passed at the time I began crafting this film, while I was awaiting funds for the fiction work that was consistently being put on the back burner while I delved into the VHS tapes of my families histories. I kept the slow wane of time in mind as the fragments of narrative of my family began to unfold before more eyes.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Arshad Khan and Gray Matter Productions. Used with permission.

Biography

Sherwan Haji (born 1985) plays the role of Khaled, a Syrian refugee. Haji, who came to Finland from Syria in 2010, graduated from Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus in 2008.

Haji acted in several TV series in Syria and continued his studies in Cambridge School of Art – Anglia Ruskin University in 2015, graduating last year with a Master of Arts degree.

Since 2012 Haji has, in addition to acting, also written and directed several short films and video installations for Lion's Line, his production company. This is Haji's first main role in a feature film. The film's soundtrack also includes music performed by Haji on saz, a traditional stringed instrument.

Synopsis

The film consists of two stories that by chance intersect at the forty-minute mark. The first one is about Khaled, a young Syrian refugee who has lost virtually all of his family. Almost by accident, he drifts to Helsinki as a stowaway passenger on a collier to seek asylum without great hopes for his future life. Wikström, the other protagonist, is a travelling salesman of about fifty (representing mainly men's shirts and ties). In the beginning of the film he leaves his alcoholic wife and his profession and turns momentarily into a poker shark. With the small amount of money he thus gains he then buys an unprofitable restaurant at the far end of an inner court along a back street in Helsinki.

When the authorities decide to return Khaled to the ruins of Aleppo he, just like many others, decides to stay illegally in the country and disappears into the streets of Helsinki. There he meets, besides various types of racism, also pure kindness. Finally Wikström finds our fellow sleeping in the inner yard of his restaurant. Perhaps he sees something of himself in the battered man because he hires Khaled as a cleaner and a dishwasher. For a moment life shows us its sunnier side, but fate soon intervenes and the film concludes with an open ending leading either to a respectable life or to the cemetery. For a person driven into a corner, both have their merits.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Sputnik Oy and Aki Kaurismäki. Used with permission.

Biography

Boris Ivanov's directing credits include theatrical recreations for History channel's Beyond Top Secret, which earned two News and Documentary Emmy nominations. He co-directed Loving a Stranger, TV documentary on the complexity of cross-cultural relationships.

He has directed several narrative films including Seven Storeys, winner of Los Angeles Short Film Festival, and Princess Castle. Recently Boris directed an online documentary In The Monument on the evolution of Holocaust memorialization.

Boris is also the producer behind Sundance premiered Family Portrait In Black and hite (VIFF 2011), Love Translated (VIFF 2010), High Five: A Suburban Adoption Saga (VIFF 2012).

Synopsis

On Putin's Blacklist presents the reality of how an adoption ban of Russian orphans to US citizens came about and how it was the first step in Russia's new Cold War with America. Soon enough this adoption ban was expanded to all countries that allow same-sex unions and combined Kremlin's anti-adoption campaign with anti-LGBT.

The next victims were the NGOs and Human Rights Groups followed by Russian opposition. Anyone on Putin's Blacklist is labeled as American spy, a foreign agent controlled by Western intelligence agencies with the aim of destroying Russia. This is how Putin is able to control the populace, by creating enemies for Russian's to hate.

With Donald Trump as president, the world is staring at an unclear future. Can Russia reverse its trajectory of persecuting opposition and vilifying the West or will Donald Trump accept Russia as is and legitimize Putin's regime.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Biography

Gustavo Salmerón, actor and director, (Madrid, Spain, 1970) has worked as an actor in over thirty films by internationally renowned directors like Julio Medem, Agustín Villaronga, Manuel Gómez Pereira, J. Luis García Berlanga, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón and Mario Camus, among others. In 2001 he directed the short film Desaliñada (Salad Days) which won the Spanish Film Academy's Goya for Best Short Film.

It also won numerous international awards including: Best Short Film at the Los Angeles International Film Festival, the Gold Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival, Best Short Award (Brest) of Canal+ France. Since 2002 he has been directing, over the course of 14 years, the documentary Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle. The film has been selected for competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Synopsis

This is the story about Julita, a matriarch whose three childhood wishes have been granted: lots of kids, a monkey, and a Spanish castle. At her 81 years old, one of her children needs to find the vertebra of his murdered great-grandmother, lost among the exorbitant amount of weird objects she has hoarded throughout her life, revealing a very picturesque family history.

This unique old lady is about to find the meaning of life.

Trailer 

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more. 

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Gustavo Salmerón. Used with permission.

Biography

Karim Sayad was born in Lausanne, Switzerland and completed a master's degree in international relations at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. He has directed the short film Babor Casanova. 

Of Sheep and Men is his debut feature documentary.

Synopsis

"Sixteen-year-old Habib dreams of training his prized sheep to become a fighting champion and middle-aged Samir just wants to sell enough sheep before Eid to make ends meet, in this emotive profile of two men in an impoverished Algerian community.

It's a tale of two men, one country, and many sheep. Habib is 16 years old, working as a bus conductor although he had once dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. He is the proud owner of El Bouq, a ram he hopes to raise to become a champion fighter. Samir is 42 years old, having seen enough hardship to know the cost of dreaming is high and that everything in life has the potential to bring a profit. He capitalizes on this ethos at Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) by buying and selling sheep for the coming slaughter. When El Bouq proves to be a far-from-illustrious combatant, and with Eid fast approaching, it looks as though the animal's fate might not be a favourable one.

Building on the style and themes explored in his award-winning short Babor Casanova, Karim Sayad explores in his documentary feature debut the current climate in Algeria following the Arab Spring with an allegorical and intricate eye. Shot in the Bab el Oued neighbourhood of Algiers, with a camera that sinks seamlessly into each scenario, the film captures Habib's, Samir's, and even the sheep's perspectives with an intriguing sense of intimacy that's rich with symbolism."

With thanks to Kiva Reardon - TIFF

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Karim Sayad and Close Up Films. Used with permission.

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Biography

Leslea Mair is a writer and producer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has been the President and CEO of Zoot Pictures Inc. since 1998.

Following completion of her BFA at the University of Regina, Leslea spent a number of years honing her skills as a writer, participating in the PRAXIS writers' workshop in 1992. She joined the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative, serving as president twice. Leslea produced several experimental shorts and directed the experimental documentary Jigsaw, receiving nomination in the Experimental category at the Yorkton International Short Film Festival. She has also written multi-threaded educational multimedia products.

In the field of documentary, Leslea researched and wrote the treatment for Two Gun Cohen in 1999, and wrote A Count's Colony for White Pine Pictures in 2000. In 2001 she produced, researched and wrote Edible Shorts, a series pilot and was the writer/producer on Black Tuesday, an hour-long documentary, in 2003. Leslea wrote and produced Big Business, Big Union, Small Town for Canwest Global in 2007 and The Path to Shaolin, which Leslea co-directed in 2009.

For 2010 she produced and wrote Operation Extreme Green for CBC's Passionate Eye. Leslea also produced and co-wrote the three part pilot for Weekend Wonder, the award-winning one hour documentary Remote Control War for CBC's Doc Zone, MS Wars for The Nature of Things, Shattered Ground for The Nature of Things, Age of the Drone for Doc Zone, and The Prairie Diner series for CityTV Saskatchewan, finishing its third season.

Leslea co-directed, wrote and produced the feature length documentary "Losing Our Religion", and is now producing and writing the one hour documentary "Something in the Air".

Synopsis

Brendan is a pastor in a small, evangelical church, and he has a secret. He doesn't believe in God anymore. His life and career revolve around his church and faith, and now that's all on the line. His wife is still a true believer. He is incredibly isolated and alone, but he's not the only one.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of clergy are in the same position. Stan is a preacher in the Deep South where the lines of religion and society blur. He lives in a manse, if anyone knew he is an atheist he would be out on the street. Andy hasn't believed for a long time, but only three people in the world know his secret – except for The Clergy Project.

Losing Our Religion is a feature length documentary about community, acceptance and a view inside the lives of clergy who are joining the rising tide of non-believers.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Leslea Mair and Zoot Pictures. Used with permission.

Biography

Born in Jakarta in 1980, Mouly Surya is considered one of the most promising female filmmakers in Indonesia. Surya had a degree in media and literature before studying film in Australia. She directs her first feature film in 2008, FIKSI. The film opens at Busan IFF and wins numerous awards including Best Director at JIFFEST.

Her second feature WHAT THEY DON'T TALK ABOUT WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT LOVE (2013) screens at various film festivals including Sundance competition and Karlovy Vary. It receives The NETPAC Award at Rotterdam.

MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS is Surya's third film.

Synopsis

"Powerful, provocative, and visually stunning, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts is a luminous new entry in the feminist western subgenre. Mouly Surya's accomplished third feature is one of a kind: a contemporary reworking of the spaghetti western and smouldering revenge movie that is deeply rooted in the cultural and geopolitical landscapes of Indonesia.

Marlina (Marsha Timothy) is a young widow, living alone in a remote farmhouse with the embalmed corpse of her deceased husband. When robbers arrive, entitled by centuries of male domination, to steal her livestock, seize her possessions, and rape her, Marlina has only her courage and intelligence to rely on. She thinks fast and acts even faster. The next day finds her on the road, hitching a ride to town with a severed head in one hand and a sabre in the other. A tale of repossessed strength and personal identity, the film features a compelling protagonist and introduces a gallery of other splendid female characters, especially "10-months" pregnant Novi (Dea Panendra).

Surya builds tension with an assured mise en scène then dissipates it with bubbly bursts of caustic humour, playing with overused cinematic languages to find a genuine new style. Witty and subversive, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts is a bold and welcome affront to the staid sensibilities of male-centred cinema culture."

With thanks to Giovanna Fulvi

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Mouly Surya and Cinesurya. Used with permission.

Biography

Alanis Obomsawin was born in New Hampshire and raised in Quebec.

A singer, songwriter, printmaker, and engraver, she has also written and directed many documentary features, including Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, Rocks at Whiskey Trench, Is the Crown at War with Us?, Hi-Ho Mistahey!, Trick or Treaty?, and We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice. 

Our People Will Be Healed is her latest film.

Synopsis

"Norway House Cree Nation sits more than 450 km north of Winnipeg. One of Manitoba's largest First Nations communities, it is also among the most innovative on Turtle Island. With a focus on self-determination and sustainability, Norway House is home to a remarkable education centre and a range of community-managed industries. But the legacy of colonial policies, the trauma of residential schools, and the pain of murdered and missing women and girls remain deeply felt.

In her latest documentary, Our People Will Be Healed, Alanis Obomsawin invites her audience into Norway House to meet its people and to glimpse what action-driven decolonization actually looks like. Obomsawin's cinema is one of voice. Her camera leans into its subjects as if listening intently, and while her trademark narration provides context, she insists that the voices largely belong to the community. Using personal interviews and gorgeous landscape photography, Obomsawin captures this rich, vibrant place in all its complexity and beauty.

For nearly five decades, Obomsawin has been giving voice to the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island and reflecting back to Canadians portions of their nation's ongoing history that they have forgotten, ignored, or silenced. But as much as Obomsawin is a chronicler of the past and present, she also provides a beacon for the future.

Successful stories of Indigenous self-determination have never been more important, as examples for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities, and for the broader culture as well. Norway House offers one potential pathway forward, a model of Indigenous sovereignty alongside Canada."

With thanks to Jesse Wente

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: National Film Board of Canada. Used with permission.

Biography

Michael Matthews

Directing technically complex productions under pressure, has earned Michael a reputation for executing ambitious projects. Michael has a strong focus on emotive, visual storytelling. His work has been nominated and won awards both locally and internationally. Michael co-founded Be Phat Motel Film Company in 2007 with the aim to develop and produce progressive cinema, and has seen a number of projects into international development.

In this period Michael has also made award-winning commercials, short films and music videos, working with worldwide brands and artists. Michael's half hour film, Sweetheart (2011), screened at festivals in South Africa, Poland, Russia, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica and the USA.

Sweetheart's international interest led him to meetings with agents and studios including Fox, Warner Brothers and WME. In 2014 Michael directed the eight part web series, Ashbeclee. The comedy-drama is in the tone of HBO 'Girls', but set in Perth Australia. Focused on three female lead characters dealing with quarter life crises and first world problems, it gained over 190 000 episode views. Michael is currently in development on a feature adaptation of Charlie Human's acclaimed novel Apocalypse Now Now.

Sean Drummond

With a history in stage & performance, Sean's visual sensitivity to pace, tone and character serve him as a complex screenwriter for his own Be Phat Motel Film Company and for the South African, and international markets, as a creative and conceptual producer and as an intuitive documentary director. His shorts Sweetheart and Wide Open and feature documentaries Lost Prophets and Outsider have screened extensively at festivals around the world.

Projects in development include television drama series co-production Acts of Man and a high-octane feature adaptation of Charlie Human's beautifully twisted novel Apocalypse Now Now. Sean is the founding manager of the Cape Town chapter of the shnit Worldwide Shortfilmfestival, celebrating, promoting and awarding South African and international short films yearly, and he sits on the festival's international executive committee, pushing artistic collaboration and exchange between filmmakers from cultures all around the world.

He continues to sit on Cape Town's festival board. He has hosted panels on finance, co-production and distribution at international markets and has served on the Writers' Guild of South Africa's executive council. Sean hosts science, tech and sci-spec podcast Space Life and Other Dumb ideas. He'd like to go to space.

Synopsis

Apartheid South Africa: The community of Railway, attached to the remote town of Marseilles, are the victims of brutal police oppression and only the young 'Five Fingers' are willing to stand up to them. Their battle is heartfelt but innocent, until hot-headed Tau kills two policemen in an act of passion.   He flees, leaving his brothers and friends behind, but his action has triggered a violent fight that will leave both Marseilles and the Five Fingers changed.

Twenty years later, Tau is released from prison, now a feared and brutal 'outlaw', 'The Lion of Marseilles'. But scarred and empty, he renounces violence and returns to Marseilles desiring only peace and to reconnect with those he left behind. At first, Tau finds Marseilles a town seemingly at peace. The battle for freedom was won.

Five Fingers are in prominent positions – as mayor, police chief and pastor of the old church. But, reconnecting with childhood love, Lerato, now proprietress of the local tavern, and her fiery son, Sizwe, it becomes clear that rather than the haven he hoped for, Marseilles is caught in the grip of a vicious new threat and to Tau's dismay, his old allies themselves may have allowed it in. Tau can keep his head down only so long. When he and his loved ones become direct targets, he is reluctantly compelled to fight once and for all.

Calling on partners-in-crime and with new friends at his side, Tau reforms the Five Fingers. Standing against old allies and new enemies alike, they must put their lives at the greatest risk for the sake of Marseilles.

Trailer

Biography

Robert Schwentke was born 1968 in Germany. He studied Literature and Philosophy at the Eberhard Karl University in Tuebingen and later earned an MFA in directing from the American Film Institute.

Synopsis

In the last, desperate moments of World War II, a young German soldier fighting for survival finds a Nazi captain's uniform.

Impersonating an officer, the man quickly takes on the monstrous identity of the perpetrators he is trying to escape from.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Robert Schwentke and Opus Films. Used with permission.

Stephen McCallum and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new film 1%, violence, loyalty and the bonds of friendship, a sense of belonging, finding our way home and why people need story.

Biography

Stephen graduated from AFTRS in 2011 where he won the Foxtel Exceptional Talent award and the AFTRS EU scholarship. Since graduating Stephen has directed multiple award winning short films and commercials including his marriage equality advert for GetUp - It's Time which was voted AdNews Viral of the year and has had over 16,000,000 hits on youtube.

In 2013 Stephen was the recipient of Screen Australia's director's attachment scheme for Tony Ayres' Matchbox feature film. In 2014 he was Glendyn Ivin's Director's Assistant on Channel 9's "Gallipoli" where he directed 2nd Unit. In 2016 Stephen was awarded the West Coast Visions fund to direct his first feature film 1%. Stephen has garnered a reputation for creating bold, character driven films set within visceral story worlds. He currently has multiple long form projects in development.

Synopsis

In the world of Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, power belongs to those strong enough to hold it. Welcome to the dangerous, uncompromising and primal world of the Copperheads MC, welcome to the 1%. 1% follows Paddo [Ryan Corr], acting president of the Copperheads Outlaw Motorcycle Club. When Paddo's simple minded brother Skink [Josh McConville] is kidnapped after a drug deal gone wrong, Paddo and his girlfriend Katrina [Abbey Lee] are forced to make a deal with rival club, the Devil's, to save his brothers life.

All is well until Copperheads president Knuck [Matt Nable] is released from jail and returns to discover the Devil's deal and other unwanted changes in his beloved club. Threatened and challenged to seize back control by his wife Hayley [Simone Kessell], Knuck violently terminates the deal with the Devils and puts Paddo back to square one. With Skink's life on the line and no options left, Paddo has to choose between his president and his brother in the ultimate collision of loyalty and blood.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Spectrum and Head Gear Films. Used with permission.

Biography

Govinda Van Maele, born 1983 in Luxembourg to Belgian-Sri Lankan parents, started making films as a teenager. After high school he took on an apprenticeship of sorts in producer-director Pol Cruchten's company Red Lion, working as an asstistant director, casting assistant and stills photographer among other positions.

His short films JOSH (2007), A DAY IN THE OPEN (2012) and YOU GO AHEAD (2013) travelled extensively on festivals and won several awards. He worked on documentaries as director (WE MIGHT AS WELL FAIL, 2011) and director of photography (MUEZZIN, 2010) and is a member of Kollektiv13, producing documentary shorts for RTL in Luxembourg.

In 2014 he founded the production company LES FILMS FAUVES with producer Gilles Chanial and director Jean-Louis Schuller. In his spare time he curates exploitation cinema at the Luxembourg Cinematheque. He lives in Turkey and Luxembourg.

Frederick Lau was born in 1989 in Steglitz, Berlin, where he still lives. He was cast in his first role in 2000 and has since played in over 50 films and television series.

In 2008 he was awarded the Deutscher Filmpreis (Lola) for best male secondary role in DIE WELLE (The Wave). In 2015 he won the Lola for best main role in Sebastian Schipper's VICTORIA.

Synopsis

"Gutland begins with the arrival of an outsider in the agricultural community of Schandelsmillen. Harvest season is already well underway, but Jens a German drifter, is looking for work. He's taken on as a farmhand — and taken to bed by Lucy (Vicky Krieps), a single mother who picks him up at the village beer hall. Taciturn and solitary by nature, Jens doesn't ingratiate himself to the locals, yet they take an instant liking to him, bringing him along to parties, gifting him a trumpet, and inviting him to join the village band.

Jens' first days in his new home flow by with bucolic tranquillity, but over time he will begin to unearth clues to Schandelsmillen's shadowy side — just as the villagers will slowly catch on to something shady about Jens' past."

With thanks to Kerri Craddock

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Les Films Fauves and Govinda Van Maele. Used with permission.

Biography

Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen was born in Bjørkelangen, Norway, and he studied directing at the Polish National Film School in Lodz.

He is the director of the shorts Darek and Everything Will Be OK. 

Valley of the Shadows is his debut feature film.

Synopsis

Between the sea and the mountains in a small village in Norway, Aslak (6) lives with his mother Astrid. A tragic event occurs that Aslak can't quite understand and Astrid struggles to handle. Aslak's friend shows him a macabre scene; three half-eaten sheep killed in the forest on a full moon night.

In a quest for answers, Aslak ventures into the menacing forest behind his house. Is what happens on his journey merely a boy's imagination or is it reality?

Valley of Shadows is a film in the tradition of Scandinavian Gothic fable.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen and Celluloid Dreams. Used with permission.

Biography

Urszula Antoniak studied Film Production at the Polish Film Academy and Film Directing at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy. Her feature film NOTHING PERSONAL  won six awards in Locarno, including the Silver Leopard for Best Debut Film and the FIPRESCI Prize. Antoniak's second feature, CODE BLUE, was selected for Cannes' Quinzaine des Realisateurs. CODE BLUE won two Golden Calves, and the lead actress, Bien de Moor, won several international prizes for her role. NUDE AREA, Antoniak's third feature, was nominated for the Golden Frog at Camerimage.

The children's film LIFE ACCORDING TO NINO (2014), which was written by Antoniak, won the prize for Best Children's Film at the Cinekid Film Festival in 2014 and at BUFF in Sweden in 2015. BEYOND WORDS is Antoniak's fourth feature film. Antoniak has recently been supported by the Netherlands Film Fund with a special grant for the development of international talent for the project STRANGER.

Synopsis

Nothing in Michael, a young and successful Berlin lawyer, gives away his Polish roots. The sudden appearance of his father, who was long presumed dead, plunges Michael into an existential crisis. After his father leaves, Michael can't return to his life as a German. Michael and his boss and best friend Franz feel at home in Berlin's hip restaurants, bars and clubs.

There is seemingly no difference between them, but Michael, who emigrated from Poland after the death of his mother several years ago, still pays extra attention to his accent. Michael is thrown into turmoil when a run-down Polish bohemian shows up on his doorstep and claims to be his father.

Father and son, two complete strangers spend a weekend together, torn between empathy, rejection and mistrust. As Michael's roots catch up with him, a painful crisis seems inevitable...

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Urszula Antoniak and Opus Films. Used with permission.

Biography

Iram Haq (b. 1976) is an actress, writer and director. She made and starred in her directorial debut, the short film Little Miss Eyeflap, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009.

Her feature film debut I Am Yours premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2013 and was selected as Norway's official Oscar entry. The film has gone on to win a number of prizes at festivals around the world.

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old Nisha lives a double life. At home with her family she is the perfect Pakistani daughter, but when out with her friends, she is a normal Norwegian teenager. When her father catches her in bed with her boyfriend, Nisha's two worlds brutally collide. To set an example, Nisha's parents decide to kidnap her and place her with relatives in Pakistan. Here, in a country she has never been to before, Nisha is forced to adapt to her parents' culture.

What Will People Say is a moving drama about the complex relationship between a father and daughter. It is the story of a young girl who must find her own way in life. In the lead, 18-year-old Maria Mozhdah makes her impressive acting debut.

Her father is played by Adil Hussain, who has previously acted in a long line of Indian and international films like Life Of Pi. What Will People Say is the second feature film by director and scriptwriter Iram Haq. Her first feature I Am Yours had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival and won several awards at international film festivals.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Iram Haq and Mer Film. Used with permission.

Biography

Boudewijn Koole won the Discovery Award of the European Film Academy in 2012. He started as a documentary filmmaker after his studies at the University of Delft. His first documentary series for television on children in the Northern Ireland conflict and children and death were nominated for the UNICEF award and an International Emmy.

He recently began to write and direct fiction films. His first feature film, Kauwboy (Little Bird) was sold to over 20 countries and won more than 30 awards worldwide, amongst them the First Feature Award at the Berlinale. Kauwboy was the Dutch entry for the 2012 Oscars.

In 2016 Beyond Sleep, premiered at the opening night of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. In September 2016 Koole has won a Golden Calf for Best Director at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht.

Synopsis

Roos (Rifka Lodeizen), a photographer of 33 years old, is on her way to her 55 year old mother Louise (Elsie de Brauw) and her 13 year old half-brother Bengt (Marcus Hanssen) in Norway. The welcome is everything but warm. Bengt is angry because Roos hasn't been home in a very long time. The relationship between Roos and Louise has been difficult for ages. Bengt and Roos soon make up; there is a very strong bond between the two of them. Making up with Louise is quite a different matter altogether.

Every approach is met with a wall of silent reproach and deep anger about the past, partly and perhaps even mostly from Roos. Roos runs into Johnny (Jakob Oftebro). After an unavoidable and passionate reunion she tells him why she has come to see her mother: she's incurably ill and she has to inform Louise and Bengt.

After a big fight with her mother Roos finally tells them. Louise as Bengt are broken by the news. Louise realizes that she has to help Roos accepting the soon coming death. Because of the time spending with her mother, in the nature with Bengt, Roos realizes that she's not going to wait for the death. She feels the desire to disappear in the nature. The hills up ahead seem to be calling her. She wants to go there, her last journey.

When Roos wants to leave the house, Louise is already waiting for her with the sledge and the dogs. Inwardly torn, Louise helps Roos and accompanies her. Roos finally reaches the place where she wants to disappear: the infinite white hills.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Boudewijn Koole and The Film Kitchen. Used with permission.

Biography

Kathleen Hepburn is a Vancouver born writer and director who holds an MFA in Creative Writing, and a BFA in Film Production from the Universities of Guelph and Simon Fraser respectively, and is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre's Writer's Lab. Her debut feature, NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL is a film that exposes the tenderness that exists within struggle, and our ineffable connection to the landscape around us.

Her most recent short film of the same name was included in TIFF's Canada's Top Ten, and was awarded Leo's for Best Dramatic Short and Best Direction, and Most Promising Canadian Director at VIFF 2015.

Synopsis

The feature film debut of writer/director Kathleen Hepburn, NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL is a tender and heart-breaking story of a physically disabled mother and discontent son ­ each alienated from their world and struggling to manage in the face of grief, guilt and chronic disease.

The film is set in the rugged and unforgiving rural north of British Columbia, Canada and the story spans an entire year in the lives of the characters. Having lived with Parkinson's disease for almost two decades, Judy is faced with the heightened challenges of daily life when her husband and caregiver dies of a sudden heart attack on their isolated property on the shores of Stuart Lake.

Meanwhile, her teenage son Jamie pushed by his father to get a job on the oil fields, is terrified by the idea of filling his shoes at too young an age, and grappling with the daunting task of becoming a man in world that has no apparent room for weakness.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Kathleen Hepburn and Christie Street Creative. Used with permission.

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Rabble blurbs:

Biography

Amr Salama is a prominent young Egyptian writer and director whose credits include the prize-winning AIDS drama Asmaa and the coming-of-age comedy Excuse My French, which swept the board at Egypt's equivalent of the Oscars.

Says Amr, I never felt as vulnerable making a film, it was half writing a memoir and half fictionalizing a universal story that can transcend above stereotyping and prejudice, a story about fear of death and loving life, identity, temptation and self love.

Synopsis

The sudden death of Michael Jackson sends a former King of Pop devotee — now a young imam — into a tailspin. But, what does an imam have in common with the King of Pop?

More importantly, can he now go back to his normal life, or will his memories and relationships with his loved ones raise the most prominent question in his mind: is he the Sheikh, Jackson, or both?

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Amr Salama and the Film Clinic. Used with permission.

Biography

Jenna Bass is a South African writer, filmmaker and former magician. Her multi-award winning films - Zimbabwe-set short, The Tunnel, and entirely-improvised debut feature, Love The One You Love, have screened around the world, including Sundance, Berlinale, Göteborg , Busan and Durban International Film Festivals, where she has been heralded as ushering in a 'New Wave' of South African cinema.

Her second feature film, body-swap satire, High Fantasy, shot entirely on the iPhone 7, will premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Her third feature, Flatland, a feminist Western set in South Africa's Karoo region, is scheduled for production in mid-2018. Jenna is the editor and co-creator Jungle Jim, the illustrated pulpliterary magazine for African fiction, established in 2011. In 2012, under her pseudonym, Constance Myburgh, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize, Africa's leading literary award. Jenna is also a lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in both Production Design and Screenwriting.

She is currently engaged in a VR collaboration with artist, Olivie Keck and indie game developers, Free Lives, as well as co-writing a fantasy animation feature screenplay for Sanusi Chronicles.

Synopsis

Four young, South African friends on a camping trip on an isolated farm wake up to discover they've all swapped bodies.

As they navigate a labyrinth of so-called Rainbow Nation politics, they capture their bizarre predicament in selfie videos - with hilarious and tragic results.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Jenna Bass and Foxfire Films. Used with permission.

Biography

Before moving into Directing, Brian studied Sculpture in the DIT School of Fine Art. Whilst there his fascination with the exploration of three-dimensional space inevitably led to him picking up a video camera and creating his first experimental short films. Through these experiments, he discovered visual directors like Sergio Leone and Martin Scorsese, and his desire to be a highly visual commercial film director was born.

His video work in college got the attention of his fellow students and before long he was making no-budget music videos for college bands. He considered abandoning art school in favour of film school, however, he felt compelled to complete his studies. After leaving college Brian worked internationally as a snow, ice and sand sculptor, taking part in many international competitions and creating sculptures on a corporate level. By this stage, cinema had bitten Brian hard, and he returned to making music videos in order to develop his skills further as a director.

After winning national awards for his work, he began to direct music videos with bigger budgets for EMI records. From here Brian turned his attention to world of TV commercials, where he has enjoyed a successful career since 2001, directing several Golden Lion, Shark and ICAD award-winning TV campaigns. Despite this commercial success, Brian's love of music, design, art, sculpture, and storytelling - and how all of these art forms could be explored in parallel through cinema - meant that Brian's focus remained on directing feature films.

In 2004 Brian's short film Screwback won a BAFTA certificate at the Aspen Film Festival, and in 2005 he was awarded the Hartley Merrill screenwriting Award at Cannes for his unproduced feature film screenplay Sisk. After a number of false starts, Brian's persistence meant he got the opportunity to direct his debut feature film with Let Us Prey winning the Méliès d'Argent award for its world premiere at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival in 2014.

Synopsis

A gothic ghost story about orphaned twins Edward and Rachel who share a crumbling manor in 1920s rural Ireland - but they are not alone. They share the house with unseen entities who control them with three absolute rules. As separate fates draw them apart, the twins must face the terrible truth about their family's ghostly tormentors.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Brian O'Malley and Tailored Films. Used with permission.

Biography

Emmanuel Gras is a French director whose films deal with contemporary social issues and are marked by a commitment to form.

He studied film photography at ENS Louis Lumière. His film Bovines was nominated for the César for Best Documentary in 2013.

His most recent film Makala won the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival in 2017.

Synopsis

The film begins at dawn in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as 28-year-old Kabwita Kasongo heads out with axes slung over his shoulder. He arrives at a majestic tree and begins the arduous process of chopping it down, one axe blow at a time. This is merely the first of several daunting tasks we witness Kasongo undertake in the process of making wood charcoal and delivering it to the marketplace.

The film patiently observes Kasongo as he works mostly alone and interacts with his wife, Lydie, and other townspeople. His minimal resources include a rickety bike that he piles precariously high with charcoal bags and pushes through dirt roads on a marathon journey.

He dreams of earning enough money to buy a better roof for his family. While that cost would be modest in an industrialized country, for Kasongo it requires an enormous exertion to attain.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Biography

Matt Embry is one of the most prolific producer/directors in Canada. Embry has produced and directed non-fiction programs for CBC, Global, CTV, TELUS, HBO Canada,

PBS, OMNI, Animal Planet, OLN and Telefilm.

His documentary directing credits include Jann Arden: Free, Ian Tyson: Songs From the Gravel Road, Curveball: WP Kinsella and Hell or High Water: The Rebuilding of the Calgary Stampede. Matt co-directed the Hot Docs selection Theo Fleury: Playing With Fire (HBO Canada) and coproduced the Gemini-nominated feature In a World Created By a Drunken God.

As president and founder of Spotlight Productions, Matt proudly oversees the production of lifestyle and cultural content for TELUS and various other clients. Matt holds a BA in Communications from the University of Calgary and an MFA in Film Production from Concordia University in Montreal.

Synopsis

Living Proof is an emotional, dynamic and fast-paced documentary that reveals

the crippling politics of multiple sclerosis (MS) through a father and son's journey to find and share hope.

After filmmaker Matt Embry is diagnosed with MS, he and his father, Dr. Ashton Embry, embark on a journey to find hope for treating the incurable disease.

Instead, they discover controversy, confusion and even allegations of a conflict of interest between Big Pharma and MS charities.

Trailer

More about the film here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

Biography

Sam Pollard is an accomplished feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director whose work spans almost 30 years. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton's Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads. For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy. Eight years later, he returned to Blackside as co-executive producer/producer of Hampton's last documentary series, I'll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. For the series, Pollard received a Peabody Award.

Between 1990 and 2010, Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee's films: Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers and Bamboozled. Pollard and Lee also co-produced a number of documentary productions for the small and big screen: Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson, a biographical sketch for HBO for which Pollard received an Emmy; Four Little Girls, a feature-length documentary about the 1963 Birmingham church bombings that was nominated for an Academy Award; and When The Levees Broke, a four-part documentary that won numerous awards, including a Peabody and three Emmy Awards. Five years later, he co-produced and supervised the edit on the follow up to Levees, If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don't Rise.

Since 2012, Pollard has produced and directed Slavery By Another Name (2012), a 90-minute documentary for PBS that was in competition at the Sundance Film Festival; August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand (2015), a 90-minute documentary for American Masters; Two Trains Runnin, (2016), a feature-length documentary that premiered at the Full Frame Film Festival; and The Talk: Race in America (2017) for PBS.

Synopsis

Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me is the first major film documentary to examine Davis' vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America. Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated and contradictory.

Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice and shifting political territory. He was the veteran of increasingly out-dated show business traditions trying to stay relevant; he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America; he was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to another persecuted minority.

Featuring new interviews with such luminaries as Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg and Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis' vast personal collection and excerpts from his electric performances in television, film and concert, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory blazed across the major flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Sam Pollard and Thirteen Productions. Used with permission.

Biography

Wayne Wapeemukwa is a filmmaker of Métis and settler heritage from Vancouver, BC (Unceded Coast-Salish Territories). Luk'Luk'I is his debut feature film.

His previous short works include Foreclosure (TIFF'13), Luk'Luk'I : Mother (TIFF'14), Balmoral Hotel (TIFF Top 10'15) and Srorrim (VIFF'16, Best Film – Dawson City Film Festival).

He reads philosophy and psychoanalysis.

Synopsis

Nationalism gets a searing reality check in Wayne Wapeemukwa's uncompromising debut feature Luk'Luk'I.

Following the lives of five Vancouverites living on society's fringes during the 2010 Olympics, this film takes us into uncharted territory, falling somewhere between a fiction we need to see and a documentary we wish didn't have to exist.

Trailer

More about the film here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Wayne Wapeemukwa and LLI films. Used with permission.

Biography

Violeta Ayala is an award-winning indigenous filmmaker and writer born in Bolivia. Her credits include Cocaine Prison (2017) premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Fight (2017) distributed by The Guardian Shorts, winner of the Doc Dispatch Award at the Sheffield Doc Fest, The Bolivian Case (2015), premiered as a Special Presentation at Hot Docs, was nominated for Premios Platino and Fenix (the two most prestigious awards in Ibero-America) and was distributed by Ibermedia across Latin America to an audience of 625 million.

Stolen (2009) which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, screened in 80 festivals worldwide has won 15 awards and aired on PBS. Violeta is currently working the feature version of The Fight and WAR, a documentary about black rights in Australia. She is also writing the screenplay El Comunista about her grandfather – a Serbian Jew, leader of the Bolivian Communist party and friend to Che Guevara. Violeta writes a popular blog at the Huffington Post.

Her films have been supported by PBS, Latino Public Broadcasting, Open Society Foundations, Sundance, MacArthur Foundation, Tribeca, Chicken & Egg, Bertha and Puma Britdoc, IDFA, CNC, Strasbourg Film Fund, Screen NSW, Screen Australia, Norwegian Film Institute, Señal Colombia and The Guardian. She is a founding member of United Notions Film. 

Synopsis

In Cochabamba, Bolivia, the children "swim" excitedly in huge piles of coca leaves, like the Ball Room in a McDonald's play area. Mediums tell fortunes by reading the leaves. When they grow older, the children help harvest the coca plants. The relationship between the coca plant and cocaine is akin to grapes and wine. While growing a certain amount of coca leaves is legal, making, taking or transporting cocaine isn't.

Amid this conundrum, teenagers may be paid $100 to transport cocaine, risking arrest and years in the notorious San Sebastian Prison.

This is the life on display in Cocaine Prison, where the boundaries of legality are blurred, in a country where the coca crop by-product all but props up a "grey market" economy. Needing to pay lip service to the U.S. War on Drugs, the Bolivian government enforces drug laws, which allows it to charge powerless drug workers while often turning a blind eye to powerful "big fish."

Cocaine Prison is a rare case of a prison documentary partially shot by the inmates themselves. The twists of the tale are almost movie-like, with Daisy mulling a devil-or-angel choice of freeing her brother by becoming a "mule" herself, or cooperating with authorities seeking her testimony against her boss. "The universal truth of the War on Drugs is that it targets the most vulnerable everywhere: the drug workers at one end and the drug addicts on the other," Ayala says. "They are the ones who are called criminals. But the world economy runs on drug money. And the key players, the big fish, live outside justice. The justice system is based on money, class and race.

Trailer

IMDB

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Violeta Ayala. Used with permission.

Biography

Erika Cohn has received numerous accolades for her work, including a Director's Guild of America award for her film, When the Voices Fade, a narrative profile of the Lebanese-Israeli war of 2006. Erika co-directed/produced, In Football We Trust, an Emmy nominated, feature documentary about the unique faith and culture that ultimately drives young Pacific Islander men into the NFL, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS' 2016 Independent Lens series. Most recently, Erika completed The Judge, a film about the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East's Shari'a courts, which will premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and broadcast on PBS' 2018 Independent Lens series. Her work has been supported by IFP, the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Institute, Hot Docs, Sheffield, ITVS, Women in Film, BAVC and the CPB Producer's Academy among others.

Erika grew up attending the Sundance Film Festival as a native Utahn, where she first began her career. In 2008, Erika traveled to Cambodia where she shot Giant Steps, a documentary about the restitution of art after the Khmer Rouge rule, which aired on PBS. Later that year she directed La Guerrera, a narrative short about a young girl in Mexico pursuing her dreams to become a professional soccer player, which premiered at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. In 2010, Erika associate produced the six-part Frontline/American Experience historical series, God in America, which explored the intersection of religion and public life in America. Erika has been a featured panelist/speaker at various film festivals and university conferences and mentors youth filmmakers across the globe. She studied at Chapman University (California) and Hebrew University (Jerusalem) and has degrees in Film Production, Middle Eastern Studies, and Acting Performance. In 2013, Erika founded Idle Wild Films, Inc., which has released three feature documentaries and produced numerous branded content and commercial spots, including Gatorade's Win from Within series, for which she received a 2016 Webby award nomination. Erika is also an avid photographer and served as a U.S. Ambassadorial Film Scholar to Israel/Palestine.

Synopsis

The Judge provides rare insight into Shari'a law, an often misunderstood legal framework for Muslims, told through the eyes of the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East's religious courts. When she was a young lawyer, Kholoud Al-Faqih walked into the office of Palestine's Chief Justice and announced she wanted to join the bench.

He laughed at her. But just a few years later, Kholoud became the first woman judge in the Shari'a courts. THE JUDGE offers a unique portrait of Kholoud—her brave journey as a lawyer, her tireless fight for justice for women, and her drop-in visits with clients, friends, and family. In the process, the film illuminates some of the universal conflicts in the domestic life of Palestine—custody of children, divorce, abuse—while offering an unvarnished look at life for women under Shari'a law.

Trailer

More about the film here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Erika Cohn and Three Judges LLC. Used with permission.

Photo by Erich Saide Photographer

Biography

Peter Gajdics (pronounced "Guy-ditch") was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, to immigrant parents from Europe. Gajdics knew from an early age that he was gay, but, for myriad reasons, that truth only seemed to cause him pain. In his early 20s, while struggling with an overwhelming sense of shame, Gajdics turned to a local psychiatrist for help. Within months he found himself embroiled in a bizarre sort of conversion therapy that attempted to "cure" him of his homosexuality. The Inheritance of Shame documents Gajdics' six-year journey through, and eventually out of, this therapy; the legal battle with his former psychiatrist; his complicated family history; and his attempts to reclaim his life—and, most especially, his truth. 

Peter is an award-winning writer whose essays, short memoir and poetry have appeared in, among others, The Advocate, New York Tyrant, The Gay and Lesbian Review / Worldwide, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Opium. He is a recipient of writers grants from Canada Council for the Arts (for non-fiction and fiction), a fellowship from The Summer Literary Seminars, and an alumni of Lambda Literary Foundation's "Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices." The Inheritance of Shame: A Memoir is his first book.

Peter Gajdics is available for speaking engagements. Reach out to him through the below contact page.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more. 

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Biography

Tanya Cothran is Executive Administrator at Spirit in Action International, a granting organization that supports community organizations and individuals in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda.

She started working for Spirit in Action in 2007.

In 2009, she completed her Masters in Library and Information Science at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

She grew up in California and moved to Toronto, ON in 2012.

More about the book here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Tonya Cothran. Used with permission.

Trailer

Synopsis

Fading from black, the frame fills with the image of a rice field, leaves of grass billow in the wind. Cut to construction along the Mekong river in the capital Phnom Penh. On the soundtrack the metronome of steel girders being pushed deep into the ground keeps time. In the foreground a young man prepares to cast his fishing net into the river as an old sampan fishing boat chugs by.

In the background a new bridge is under construction, the sound of which marks the unsteady pace of progress in Cambodia. The film is an intimate portrait of three Cambodian's involved in forced evictions. We meet the characters at the very beginning of their journey, unsure of themselves and unaware of where they will end up after years of protests against their government.

Biography

Chris is an award-winning video journalist and documentary filmmaker and the founder of Little Ease Films. He has spent the last nine years making his first feature documentary 'A Cambodian Spring'.

He is a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper and in 2014 produced an award-winning undercover investigation into slavery in the Thai fishing industry.

His work has taken him as far afield as South Sudan, Burma, the Philippines, Laos and Thailand.

He is currently developing an animated feature film about slavery in the Thai fishing industry, a feature documentary about a young Irish man who went to fight Assad in Syria and a Virtual Reality computer game about slavery and migration.

More about Chris Kelly here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Eye Steel Films and Chris Kelly. Used with permission.

More about Kelita's new album project here.

Biography

KELITA writes, sings and speaks from her own life experiences, sharing her powerful and inspiring healing journey. Coming from a life of countless tragedies and family dysfunction, she shares the lessons of overcoming and victory with an endearing transparency and honesty that engages, encourages and inspires.

Her ability to touch and penetrate the hearts of audiences is what drives her success. KELITA's is a message that rings true and pours out through the words she shares from her inner being. She has the innate ability to write, sing and speak what others are feeling.

From her imaginary stage in the hayloft of the big barn of her parents' Claresholm, Alberta ranch, she began to sing at the age of four under the yard light that was her first "spotlight". Her love of music and performing were KELITA's escapes from many significant traumatic family experiences and abuse during her early childhood and teen years. In fact, it was those escapes that fine-tuned a dream that she would "one day be a star" – a reality that continues to expand after decades of performance.

Talent, captivating performance and charisma is what attracts the following that KELITA has garnered over her career. From hilarious character comedy delivered by her host of zany unique characters to beautifully written and sung folk/pop/kinda 'gospelly' songs to heart wrenching ballads that deeply stir emotions, KELITA's versatility and diversity causes her to captivate the hearts of her listeners and open up minds to messages with universal appeal.

While climbing to the top of her field, a near fatal automobile accident saw KELITA's personal life and music career take a dramatic turn. Combining a pending recording contract with Capital Records, Nashville, lost as a result of Capital's corporate restructuring, along with dissolving a thirteen-year relationship with her husband/manager, you would think that would be enough to crush anyone's dreams. Instead, it was a time of great soul-searching for KELITA and out of the ashes, a stronger, more resilient and transparent singer, songwriter emerged.

The songs she began to write were not only skillful, but honest, open-hearted and reflective. This new resonance with the heart attracted collaborations with Canadian greats; Michael Burgess, Susan Aglukark (KELITA helped Susan write the hit song "Breaking Down" and "Kathy I" for her Triple Platinum Album "This Child") and others, as well as a number of notable organizations.

A few years later KELITA met and married multi-talented musician/producer/arranger Gord Lemon, who then became her producer and co-writer. Musically, their first project garnered them KELITA's signature hit country song "The Strong One". Together they have created and produced all of KELITA's award winning music including Juno nominated "Naked Soul" and Canadian Gospel Music Association's Inspirational Album of the Year, "Because of Love".

Inspired by her deep understanding of the hurt and pain associated with childhood trauma, KELITA has developed a passion for women, children and social justice. Over a period of several years, led by her dedication and humanitarian efforts, her critically acclaimed album "Heavenly Night" and initiative project of the same name raised both awareness and $250,000 for the rehabilitation of young children rescued from child exploitation in Cambodia. KELITA has also contributed to the healing of childhood wounds for men and women around the globe through her Award-Winning songs "Bella" and "Deep Dark Secret".

KELITA speaks to the acknowledgement, empathy and the very real struggle of overcoming adversity. It has become commonplace for her audience to bestow virtues on KELITA for her music helping them through hardships, illness or seemingly insurmountable life challenges. As more than one of her fans have proclaimed; "Your music literally has saved my life!" KELITA is not just an immensely talented singer, songwriter, speaker and comedienne, she is an exceptional woman who is a compassionate artistic vessel who is used to powerfully impact and touch the human spirit.

Learn more about Kelita here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Trailer

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TIFF

Synopsis:

The documentary follows the intimate journey of Chinese migrant worker Yi Yeting, a benzene-poisoned victim-turned-activist who takes on the global electronic industry. While struggling to survive his own work-induced leukemia, he brings his fight against benzene from his hospital room where he helps other workers, to Silicon Valley and the international stage. Yi's efforts along with the support of others, ultimately contributes to Apple banning two of the most toxic chemicals, benzene and n-hexane, in its final assembly.

Against huge odds Yi directly confronts corporate and government interests, while empowering and inspiring the people around him. His wife Liu Huihui, a stay-at-home mom, goes undercover to investigate an Apple supplier. Xiao Ya, an teenager rural migrant, who arrives in the city with hopes and dreams of a working "paradise" that she's imagined since she was a kid.

Tragically she gets poisoned on her first job by n-hexane, a solvent she used in polishing iPhone screens, at a hidden Apple subcontractor. Inspired by Yi, she starts to help other sick workers. Ming Kunpeng, another benzene-poisoned protagonist we meet through Yi, can't bear the burden his illness places on his family, and commits suicide.

Shot under the radar and with incredible access, the film explores global brands' social responsibly and consumers' role, while offering an in-depth look into love, family, Chinese culture, and the people sacrificing everything to make a difference.

Biography

Heather White is a first-time documentary director. From 2011-2014 she was a Network Fellow at Harvard Universityʼs Edmond Safra Center for Ethics, researching potential conflicts of interest in independent monitoring models of supply chain risk.

She is the founder and former Executive Director (1995-2005) of www.verite.org, a respected non-profit organization recognized for its groundbreaking leadership in the areas of independent monitoring and factory social audits.

During her tenure at Verité she advised companies such as adidas-Solomon, The Body Shop, Marks and Spencer, Macyʼs, The Gap and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI).

More here on the website about the campaign and film.

More about Blackout Media here on the website.

Biographies

Anna Jane (AJ) Edmonds is an emerging leader in the film industry, working in Toronto and Los Angeles as a producer and idea creator for movies with an edge. After working on set with a number of Toronto based film productions, in 2014 she secured the opportunity to work at Silver Pictures Entertainment and be a part of its management and development team during the production of the films THE NICE GUYS and COLLIDE. 

Zach Ramelan is an award winning independent filmmaker from Ontario, Canada. From the age of 17, Zach has pursued his passion as a full time filmmaker. Since then he has created several award-winning short films, music videos and feature films. His music videos have enabled him to collaborate with international artists such as Sixx AM and FlyLeaf.

After the success and global distribution of his feature film, DEAD RUSH, Zach is looking forward to working on his next big project! Zach runs a popular Youtube channel on filmmaking tips and tricks called "Film Freak" with over 13,000 followers. 

Karl Janisse was born and raised in Burlington, ON. Karl Janisse has been working professionally in film and television from the age of 18. He now works as a Cinematographer and Independent Producer in Toronto. 

He values above all else, the importance of a meaningful story, and the impact it can have on people. He is constantly pursuing how the art of filmmaking can expand our minds; and strives for unique photography that can tell a captivating story. His notable work includes feature films such as Dead Rush and The Hexecutioners and commercial clients like Tesla and Coca-Cola, and is an associate member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers

Link to ONE Vaden's must have book.

Biography

As a motivator, Vaden has the incredible talent of releasing vision and purpose in others, as his life message is all about making vision a reality, and not giving up until the end result is in your grasp.  

As an innovative forward thinker, Vaden has a knack to stay ahead of the curve and continually come up with initiatives that are relevant and timely.

As a speaker, his dynamic and avant-garde approach is sure to activate his audience, and yet his unaffected manner will keep them at ease, and assure them that change really is possible.

As a writer, Vaden has an incredible ability to bring stories to life in such a way that the reader cannot help but be inspired.

Having received and been nominated for numerous speaking and entrepreneurial awards, Vaden has accumulated vast amounts of experience in a relatively small amount of time.  He has spoken and travelled with teams all over Canada and the United States, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, and is also a leader in his own community. He has consulted for World Vision, been a keynote speaker for Home Depot Canada, CSLC (Canadian Student Leadership Conference), the Millennium Scholarship Foundation as well as numerous other leadership events and social justice conferences including speeches on Parliament Hill.

Vaden has exceptional skills in developing high-level relationships as well as corporate associations and partnerships. During his time as CEO in the non-profit sector, Vaden cultivated corporate relationships with numerous major national and multinational corporations. During this same period his fundraising efforts totalled over thirty million dollars and he was also a direct consultant for various Members of Parliament.

Vaden has also been featured on several television programs and radio interviews, and his materials have been used in numerous books and publications. In 2007, Vaden authored a bestselling social justice book entitled One: A Face behind the Numbers. This book hit number one on Amazon in under four hours solely on sales made from Vaden's social media contacts. The book later went on to be named as the Social Justice Curriculum in numerous school districts across Canada and The United States.

There are many who credit the recent rise in Canadian "voluntourism" to Vaden's efforts and writing, as no other group has hosted humanitarian trips to the scale that his group has.

And more about Widlene here.

Synopsis:

All over the world people are lined up now - millions, maybe billions of us - losing trillions of hours of our time. We line up at hospitals, banks, border crossings, supermarkets, trains, planes and fast food chains. In fact, for over 50 years queue designers have been trying to conquer the queue, in vast, largely secret worldwide experiments - and the lab rats in the maze are us.

THE TAMING OF THE QUEUE travels from Canada to England and India to look at how humans behave in queues. It looks at the boredom, frustration, stress, fatigue and fury we all feel in line-ups, as our fast-paced lives slow to a crawl.

Biography

Josh Freed, the Montreal-based writer/director of THE TAMING OF THE QUEUE, is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and journalist. His documentary films have been seen in over 50 countries, and include Deluged by Data (for which he won a 2016 Writers Guild of Canada award in the Documentary category); The Good, the Bad and the Bike (as narrator/on-camera host of this 2016 Radio-Canada documentary);  Life Below Zero; The Trouble With Experts; Where Did I Put…My Memory? My Messy Life; China's Sexual Revolution; In Search of Sleep - An Insomniac's Journey; Coat of Many Colours; To Kill or To Cure; Polar Bear Safari; and Juggling Dreams in Mongolia.

For his writing, Freed has won two National Newspaper Awards as Best Canadian Columnist for his weekly column in the Montreal Gazette. He is also the author of several popular books, including Moonwebs; Vive Le Quebec Freed; The Anglo Guide to Survival in Quebec; and Fear of Frying, which won him the Stephen Leacock Prize for humour.

His theatre projects include co-writing and co-starring in the hit play Four Anglos of the Apocalypse, for the Centaur Theatre in Montreal, and The 25th Century Belongs To Canada, which also had a successful run at the Centaur.

Learn more about Josh here.

And more about the film here.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Josh Freed. Used with permission.

More here on the website about the film.

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Synopsis:

Nowhere to Hide follows male nurse Nori Sharif through five years of dramatic change, providing unique access into one of the world's most dangerous and inaccessible areas – the "triangle of death" in central Iraq.

Initially filming stories of survivors and the hope of a better future as American and Coalition troops retreat from Iraq in 2011, conflicts continue with Iraqi militias, and the population flees accompanied by most of the hospital staff.

Nori is one of the few who remain. When ISIS advances on Jalawla in 2014 and takes over the city, he too must flee with his family at a moment's notice, and turns the camera on himself.

Biography

Director and Photographer Zaradasht Ahmed is a Kurdish/Norwegian filmmaker. He was born and raised in Northern Iraq.

His latest work "Nowhere to Hide" has won multiple awards including the IDFA Award for Best Feature Documentary and the One World Human Rights Film Festival Award for Best Documentary.

Earlier works include the award-winning documentary Road to Diyarbakir, and Fata Morgana. Zaradasht has many years of experience working with documentary filmmaking in the Middle East, North-Africa, and Asia, as well as training local people in documentation.

Nathan Fitch and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new film Island Soldier, the US military and Micronesian soldiers, service, hope and economics.

Trailer

IMDB

More about the film here on the website.

Synopsis:

ISLAND SOLDIER follows members of the Nena family from one of the most remote islands in the world to the training grounds of Texas and the battlefields in Afghanistan. The death of Sapuro "Sapp" Nena in Afghanistan makes waves through his tiny home island of Kosrae - where nearly everyone is connected to the U.S. Military directly or through family members.

In an attempt to heal from his own deep wounds, Sapuro's best friend in the Army, Mario Robles, heads to Kosrae with his family to meet Sapp's parents for the first time and pay his respects on Veteran's Day.

It is an emotional gathering of two families, from opposite sides of the world, brought together by loss, love and honor.

Biography

Nathan is a filmmaker and visual journalist based in Brooklyn. He currently works in the video department of The New Yorker. His work has been featured in The New York Times, TIME magazine, and The National Film Board of Canada.

Nathan holds an MFA in documentary storytelling from Hunter College where he was the recipient of the Welfare and Scholarship fund, and the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.

Nathan served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia doing Historic Preservation work, and still has a great fondness for breadfruit.

More about The Strombo Show here.  

More about George here.

Biography

A six-time Gemini Award and Canadian Screen Award winner for best host in a talk series, George Stroumboulopoulos has interviewed a who's who of entertainment icons, world leaders and respected thinkers.

George has also taken an active role in global initiatives and is a strong advocate for social issues.

George is the first Canadian National Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme. And he's one of three Canadians recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for 2012.

He was also a driving force behind Canada for Haiti, a live benefit that raised more than 27 million dollars for Haitian earthquake victims, and One Million Acts of Green, which saw Canadians register 1.6 million acts of green on the official website.

Along the way, George has interviewed Hollywood legends such as Oprah, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Michael J. Fox, Clint Eastwood, Jodie Foster, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Samuel L. Jackson; political leaders such as Hillary Clinton, Stephen Harper, Jean Chrétien, Sarah Palin, Brian Mulroney, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter; critically acclaimed authors including Christopher Hitchens, Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, Peter C. Newman and Gore Vidal; music stars Coldplay, Nickelback, Robert Plant, Snoop Dogg, Tony Bennett, Shania Twain, Michael Buble, Ice Cube and The Foo Fighters; renowned directors including Spike Lee, James Cameron, Deepa Mehta, Brian DePalma, and Paul Haggis; and Hollywood breakout stars Ewan McGregor, Olivia Wilde, Bradley Cooper, Ryan Reynolds and Robert Pattinson.

As well, George took part in The Greatest Canadian TV series on CBC, hosting a documentary to make his case for the founder of medicare in Canada, Tommy Douglas. He was one of ten finalists and ultimately received the most votes from Canadians, winning by more than 50,000 votes over second-placed Terry Fox.

George has also hosted the highly regarded CBC documentary series Love, Hate & Propaganda - which examined how propaganda helped shape significant events of the 20th century, including the Second World War, the Cold War and the War On Terror.

George is the host and co-executive producer of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight. You can find him on Twitter at @strombo as well as on Facebook.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: George Strombolopolous. Used with permission.

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Trailer

Find out more about the film here.

Synopsis

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York.

Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

The indictment and subsequent trial forces the Sung family to defend themselves – and their bank's legacy in the Chinatown community – over the course of a five-year legal battle.

Biography

Steve James produced and directed Hoop Dreams, winner of every major critics prize as well as a Peabody and Robert F. Kennedy Award.

Other award-winning films include Stevie, winner of the Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award, IDFA Grand Jury Prize and the Yamagata Mayor's Prize, among others; the Independent Documentary Association Award-winning miniseries The New Americans; Tribeca Film Festival Grand Prize winner The War Tapes, which James produced and edited; At the Death House Door, co-directed with Peter Gilbert, and winner of numerous festival awards; No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson for ESPN's Peabody winning "30 for 30" series; and The Interrupters, which won an Emmy, Independent Spirit Award and the DuPont Columbia Journalism Award, among others.

James' most recent film, Life Itself, was named the best documentary of the year by over a dozen critics associations, Rotten Tomatoes, the Critics' Choice Awards, the National Board of Review, and the Producers Guild of America.

Most recently, Life Itself was nominated for Emmy awards for Best Documentary and Outstanding Editing: Documentary and Long Form. 

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Steve James. Used with permission.

Trailer

IMDB

More about the film here on the website.

Synopsis:

In the midst of the Egyptian Arab Spring, Bassem Youssef makes a decision that's every mother's worst nightmare... He leaves his job as a heart surgeon to become a full-time comedian.

Dubbed, "The Egyptian Jon Stewart," Bassem creates the satirical show, Al Bernameg. The weekly program quickly becomes the most viewed television program in the Middle East, with 30 million viewers per episode. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart averaged two million viewers.

In a country where free speech is not settled law, Bassem's show becomes as controversial as it popular. He and his staff must endure physical threats, protests, and legal action, all because of jokes.

As Bassem attempts to remain on the air, keep his staff safe, and not get arrested, he continues to let those in power know they're being held accountable. Despite increasing danger, the team at Al Bernameg employ comedy, not violence, to comment on hypocrisy in media, politics, and religion. Tickling Giants follows the team of Al Bernameg as they discover democracy is not easily won.

The young women and men working on Bassem's show are fearless revolutionaries, who just happen to be really, really funny. No unicorns or falafel were harmed in the making of this film

Biography

A Senior Producer at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Taksler has pitched stories and jokes, and researched footage for over a decade. Taksler directed and produced the feature documentary, TWISTED: A Balloonamentary, a hilarious and heartwarming look at the world's premier balloon-twisting convention, with film partner Naomi Greenfield.

After debuting at South by Southwest, Hollywood Reporter called the film "A thoroughly winning feature" and Variety hailed it as "A feel good, irony-free celebration". Taksler's first film, Stop the Ignorance: The Beauty That Is New Jersey, was a tribute to her home state.

Her latest documentary, Tickling Giants, will have its world premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Taksler can talk backwards and has a remarkable fake sneeze.

Sara's favorite way of Tickling Giants: Using comedy to find cathartic ways to process major bummers.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Sara Taksler. Sarkasmos Productions. Used with permission

Biography

Jason Anthony Dudek is the Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of Mountain Lion Agriculture, and holds an MSc from the London School of Economics where he studied smallholder Agronomics in Sierra Leone. He has spent the last 12 years working in Sierra Leone, where he helped found an innovative organisation dedicated to accountable, effective community-based development.

Jason also volunteers his time on a number of boards including as Chairman of the Catherine Donnelly Foundation, one of Canada's most innovative and effectual philanthropic foundations both in terms of programming and investment. 

Jason also has business experience in Canada, the United Kingdom and Iraq, co-founding several companies including the firm employed by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation to conduct Iraq's Official Investment Map in 2008. 

Find out more here: www.mlbr.org

Read more about Michelle here.

Biography

Dr. Michelle Stevens, a psychologist, is the founder and director of Post-Traumatic Success, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and inspiring those affected by psychological trauma. She is the author of Scared Selfless: My Journey from Abuse and Madness to Surviving and Thriving. 

She studied writing at New York University before earning her doctorate in clinical psychology from Saybrook University, where her thesis was honoured as the Dissertation of Distinction. Stevens has presented her research to the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and the Los Angeles County Psychological Association, where she also received an award for Outstanding Research.

She works with survivors around the globe as a therapist, speaker, and advocate, encouraging them to heal, grow, and fight for better lives.

She lives in Los Angeles with her wife and son.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Biography

Gerry Flahive is a Toronto-based writer, producer and creative consultant at his media arts company, Modern Story. Until May 2014, Flahive was Senior Producer at the National Film Board of Canada, which he joined in 1981. He has done creative and storytelling consulting, strategic planning, course development and speechwriting for clients, including the Toronto Maple Leafs, Cirque de Soleil, Telefilm Canada, MaRS, TVOntario, Humber College and Giants of Africa.

His productions have won many international awards including 2 Emmy Awards, a World Press Photo Award and a Peabody Award for HIGHRISE (highrise.nfb.ca), a global interactive documentary. He produced & co-produced more than 80 documentary projects on a wide range of subjects. Major projects include the international co-production PARIS 1919, the ground-breaking Filmmaker-in-Residence multi-media project at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, the NFB-Canadian Film Centre Feature Documentary Program, and short films for the Governor-General's Performing Arts Awards, working with such recipients as Bryan Adams and Rush.

In the early 1990's, as Senior Communications Manager, he managed NFB involvement in the Oscars and the Sundance Film Festival, as well as corporate communications and corporate branding. 

Flahive is a frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail and has been published in Time, The New York Times and The Walrus, and many media industry publications, and is a National Magazine Award nominee for humour. He is a member of the boards of the Pages Unbound literary festival, the Toronto Irish Film Festival and the Seneca College Documentary Film Institute, and was on the Advisory Board for the MIT Open Documentary Lab report "Interactive Documentary and Digital Journalism".  

He has been a guest speaker, presenter and mentor at many international events and institutions, including MIT, the I-Docs Lab in Switzerland, the MEDIMED Documentary conference in Barcelona, and the New York Film Festival.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Trailer

IMDB

Synopsis

Of the grievances and grudges that plague the Middle East, no issue is more incendiary than the Jewish-only settlements that have dotted the occupied West Bank for a half-century. 

Canadian/Israeli Shimon Dotan's acclaimed documentary The Settlers sets out to illustrate - through first-person accounts, historical footage and expert witness - how 400,000 motivated Israelis ended up in communities almost strategically placed between, and sometimes within, Arab Palestinian cities populated by the millions. It is a confounding tale of religious zeal and secular hatred, where an olive tree is an amorphous territorial border, and the burial of a stillborn baby amounts to a claim of political sovereignty over a city. 

Dotan, a professor of political cinema at NYU Graduate School of Journalism, traces 50 years of internationally-incendiary conflict to a single charismatic rabbi, Tzvi Yehuda Kook, who gave a rabble-rousing sermon just before the 1967 War, asking rhetorically "Where is our Hebron? Where is our Nablus? Where is our Jericho?" 

All those scriptural places would end up in Israeli hands, and the young disciples of Rabbi Kook, who formed themovement of the Gush Emunim, became a powerful political force who soon learned not to ask permission when it came to putting down roots in occupied territories. What follows is a history of wildly-different approaches from an Israeli government at odds with the most religious of its own people. 

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called the Gush Emunim, "a cancer in the democratic fabric of the state of Israel" (and was assassinated by a Jewish extremist 20 years later). At other times, the government's approach seems to range from arms-length to secretly-enabling. 

"I made The Settlers because, in my view, the Settlement Enterprise has the most dramatic impact on the future of Israel, and the discussion about it, is often misinformed," Dotan says. "I set out to explore the reality in the West Bank settlements. But it soon became clear that I had to go back to the roots, to where and when the West Bank settlements began." 

Biography

Shimon Dotan was born in Romania in 1949 and moved to Israel in 1959. He grew up in Moshav Arugot, an agricultural cooperative. He then served five years in the Israeli military as a Navy Seal and went on to get his BFA at Tel Aviv University, where his student films won Israel's Best Short Film and Best Director Awards twice. 

A Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities, he is an award-winning filmmaker with thirteen feature films to his credit. His films have been the recipients of the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival (The Smile of the Lamb), numerous Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Film and Best Director (Repeat Dive; The Smile of the Lamb), Best Film at the Newport Beach Film Festival (You Can Thank Me Later) and the Special Jury Prize at Sundance (Hot House). 

Dotan has taught political cinema at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University since 2003. He also teaches at The New School in New York City. He has previously taught at Tel Aviv University and at Concordia University in Montreal. 

Dotan is the writer and director of The Settlers, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016, and opened in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City on March 17.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Shimon Dutan. Used with permission.

Read more about Karen and her work here.

Biography

Karen Dougherty is Toronto-based psychotherapist and documentary filmmaker.

In her practice she works to help patients through periods of adversity, transition, and instability to deepen self-understanding, establish emotional regulation, and build resilience. Her key areas of interest are repetitive bad-object relations, trans-generational trauma, and existential issues. She is a Candidate at the Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis.

As a filmmaker, Karen specializes in psychoanalytic, history, and social issue documentaries. Her current project, funded by PEPweb http://www.pep-web.org/, explores the world of Columbia University Researcher Dr. Beatrice Beebe, whose frame-by-frame video microanalysis of mother-infant communications has revolutionized our understanding of attachment.

Recent collaborations include research and consulting on the CBC POV documentary Girls Night Out, about young women and binge-drinking culture (Directed by Phyllis Ellis, produced by White Pine Productions, premiering on CBC's Firsthand on February 25, 2016); The Nature of Things documentary The Equalizer (Kensington Communications), about sports psychology and technology (airing on March 3rd, 2016); and, also with Kensington Communications, Risk Factor, a point-of-view documentary for TVO about the psychology of risk (in production).

As a psychoanalytic consultant on documentaries she helps filmmakers tune into their subjects, listening for and capturing unconscious communications and provides guidance on dealing with trauma and maintaining boundaries.

Karen has a Master's Degree in English Literature (McGill) and a Master's in Psychoanalytic Studies (School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield).

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

IMDB

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More about Dan Eldon here.

More about Creative Visions here.

Synopsis

The Journey is the Destination is based on the remarkable true story of the life of Dan Eldon, a photographer, artist, and adventurer.  By the age of 22, he had travelled to more than 40 countries, created fine art journals, worked with refugees, been hired as the youngest photojournalist at Reuters, fallen in love  — and accumulated more life experience than most in a lifetime.  

Inspiring and irreverent, the film tell the story of a young man coming of age to realize his purpose, and his belief that we can all create positive change.  

This film is 23 years in the making and we could not be more proud to have Kathy's original dream become a reality.  This would not be possible without the phenomenal group of producers, the incredible director Bronwen Hughes, the cast, crew and everyone who has been part of this journey.  The journey continues…

Biography

Bronwen Hughes is a New York and Hollywood-based feature film director of Canadian and British origin.

She is currently at work on the feature film The Journey is the Destination, based on the life of artist and photographer, Dan Eldon. This epic adventure tells the story of Dan who spent his life traveling and photographing in 42 countries, inspiring young people to follow him. Like Dan, Hughes started photographing and traveling the globe from a very young age. 

Hughes' feature Stander is based on the true story of a notorious and brilliant bank robber in 1970's Johannesburg. This charismatic criminal became a popular hero, often robbing 4 or 5 banks in a single day. Ultimately, he was apprehended and revealed to be the captain of the South African Police. Stander stars Thomas Jane (The Punisher, Boogie Nights) and Dexter Fletcher (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). The shoot took place in Johannesburg and the Townships of Soweto and Tembisa, where Hughes directed thousands of extras in a re-creation of the riots of the apartheid struggle.

Her previous feature, Forces of Nature, starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck, was made for Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks. It is a stylish and unique romantic comedy about two strangers thrown together on a wild ride battling the elements, both trying to make it to Savannah on a deadline. Noted for its special effects sequences of slow-motion hail storms and surreal hurricanes, Forces of Nature was the Number One film in the weeks of its National and International releases.

Hughes came to the attention of Spielberg who asked her to direct Forces of Nature after seeing her first feature film, Harriet the Spy, starring Rosie O'Donnell. Made for Paramount Pictures, Harriet was released to critical and box office success, and won international prizes.

She currently has several films in development: Romeo Spy, the true story of John Symonds, one-time London policemen who became an international seducer-of-women for the KGB in the 1970's; Firecracker Boys for Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way, a truth-stranger-than-fiction story of Alaskan Eskimos exposing the nuclear conspiracy of the Atomic Energy Commission; The Dictator's Lover, the true story of three generations of female spies; and Tropicana, a large-scale musical based on the legendary Havana nightclub.

Her production experience has taken her all over the world, from Iceland and Norway, to East and Southern Africa, to Central American Mayan ruins, and the remote peaks of the Andes. Her award-winning documentary for The Discovery Channel, Cinenova's Machu Picchu: The Search for Lost Worlds was filmed in the jungles of inland Peru.

For television, Hughes' prestigious pilots White Collar and Fairly Legal, both for USA Networks and Fox TV Studios, are now hit series for the network.

Hughes completed an action-packed episode of Breaking Bad, which has received Emmy's for AMC, and several episodes of the HBO series Hung, starring Thomas Jane, who also starred in her feature film, Stander. 

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Bronwen Hughes. Used with permission.

Egil Larsen and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new film 69 Minutes of 86 Days, The Refugee crisis, making sense of time, polarization of real issues, childlike wonder and why he still has hope.

Trailer

Hot Docs Review – calls it "Essential viewing."

Find out more about the film here.

Synopsis

Every day, about 90 Syrian refugees arrive in Canada.

40,081 have been welcomed since November 4, 2015. (Data as of January 29, 2017)

The war in Syria has now lasted six years.

According to UNICEF, one in three of today's Syrian children have never experienced anything but war and flight. Every week hundreds of families flee. 69 Minutes of 86 Days is the part of the story that hasn't been told. Follow three-year-old Lean's journey from an unfamiliar port in Greece on the edge of a beach, through passport controls, congested trains, tents, and a large field, to the quiet streets of Uppsala, Sweden.

At an unspecified port, we are led into a crowd of people through a trail of discarded lifejackets. Part of a new wave of documentaries that depict the various elements of the Syrian crisis, 69 Minutes of 86 Days takes a poignantly humanistic approach. In its quiet beauty, it unravels the physical and emotional challenges that refugee families face every day: millions of people on the run, thousands who have lost their lives and a patchwork of political power games. With this serving as the entry point to the story, the camera moves onward. Walking along a Greek highway, a little girl stands out from the crowd. Three-year-old Lean is brimming with curiosity and childlike energy. Her playful nature engages us, in stark contrast to the intimidating backdrop of Europe. Without any background information on the child and her family, one can only guess where they've travelled from; we naturally assume they have crossed the ocean and already seen many things. While Lean may not fully understand what she's experiencing, her strength and optimism shine through, giving hope to those who need it the most.

Filmed from one metre above the ground, the camera captures the story from the viewpoint of the child. We are with her and her little "Frozen" backpack amongst the legs and bags belonging to the adults around her. We realize that she understands the seriousness of the journey and is on her way to a new future, but through the journey she holds onto her childlike ability to normalize her days. She sings, plays, shares a lollipop with her little sister, washes the face of her uncle and sleeps in the arms of her parents when she gets tired. The landscape changes continuously as national borders are crossed. Lean is on her way to her grandfather in Sweden and she dreams of learning to swim.

Biography

Egil Håskjold Larsen has worked as a cinematographer and director since finishing his studies in 2008. Studying fine art photography in Turkey, and finally documentary filmmaking in Norway. In 2016 he released his first documentary film Ad Astra. 69 Minutes of 86 Days is his first feature length documentary film

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Egil Håskjold Larsen. Taskovski Films. Used with permission.

IMDB

Synopsis

ASK THE SEXPERT is a feature length documentary about a highly popular 93-year-old sex advice columnist for a daily newspaper in Mumbai. Despite sex being a taboo topic in that country, the column's brand of non-moralistic advice and humor has emboldened many to write in with their questions, the vast majority of whom seek basic information.

The columnist gains popularity even while a ban on comprehensive sex education in schools is adopted by approximately one third of India's states.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yRR1_VU1cQ 

Biography

Vaishali Sinha Co-Directed/Produced the feature documentary MADE IN INDIA about the personal stories behind the phenomenon of outsourcing surrogate mothers to India. The film premiered at Hot Docs Film Festival and aired on PBS in 2012.

The film received several Jury awards at festivals and is currently a case study at Harvard Business School for their class on ethics. ASK THE SEXPERT is Vaishali's second feature length documentary; a presentation by her company Coast to Coast Films.

Vaishali has also produced numerous shorts. She has received support for her films from ITVS, the MacArthur Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Catapult Fund, Firelight Media, Playboy Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures, The Fledgling Fund, Center for Asian American Media, Mozilla, Ford Foundation, Nextpix and more.

Vaishali also freelances at Videoline Productions founded by Peabody award-winning filmmaker Richard Wormser (Rise and Fall of Jim Crow). Vaishali speaks regularly at events and has acted as jury member at film festivals. In the past she has worked with women's right group Point of View, in Mumbai. She is originally from Mumbai, and now resides in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Fred Lassen, a Music Director and their two-year-old son Luca.

IMDB

Trailer

And learn more about Kalina here. 

Synopsis

Manic chronicles filmmaker Kalina Bertin's struggle to make sense of the legacy of mental illness wreaking havoc over her sibling's lives.

Convinced that her father holds a key piece of the puzzle, she sets out to find the truth about him, and discovers a man known alternately as a cult leader, a scam artist, a prophet, and a father of fifteen.

Manic invites the viewer on a compelling and intimate journey through time and through the mind, where past and present collide.

Biography

After completing her degree in film production in Montreal at UQÀM, filmmaker Kalina Bertin quickly realized that if she didn't set out to understand the mental illness in her family it would destroy her. This process gave birth to her compelling documentary film Manic, which explores the legacy of bipolar disorder in her family.

Aiming to build empathy and awareness toward such a complex condition, she currently is directing a virtual reality experience, which will enable the viewer to explore the world of manic-depression from within.

Kalina presented this project in development at the MIT Open Documentary lab and at the MUTEK and SODEC Atelier Grand Nord VR.

Manic and ManicVR are both produced by EyeSteelFilm, a two-time Emmy award winning production company based in Montreal.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Kalina Bertin. Eye Steel Films. Used with permission.

For more info on Reel Time Images head here.

Biography

Daniel's first experience in the Canadian film industry was in 1974 when, while studying history of science, religion and philosophy at the University of Waterloo, he got a summer job as a researcher for a documentary. Though only 20 at the time this was far from his earliest foray into the Canadian art scene. At the age of 15 he began working as an assistant in the technical crew at Theatre Passe Muraille. This was in 1969 and Passe Muraille was the centre of avante garde theatre.

In recent years Daniel's specifically theatre related work has been limited to directing actors in some of his productions as well as having made a number of documentaries about performers. A working magician himself for some years, he taught magic privately and for the Toronto Board of Education. He is also one of the founding board member of Magicana a registered charity dedicated to the exploration of magic as a performing art and to increasing the public's understanding and appreciation of this art. For more information see www.magicana.com

From the early 80s, through much of the 90s he was also involved managing the organization and activities of large groups of volunteers. These activities included helping organize neighborhood newspapers in Canada and abroad (including England, Scotland, Iceland, and Jamaica). Daniel is fluent in Spanish. His interests in the history of technology have come to a happy meeting in his current experiments in textile production, dye chemistry and casting metal (copper, bronze, brass, and iron) using kilns and crucibles that he has built himself.

His creative endeavors are not limited to film or the forge. He is a writer in a range of genres and one of his short writings was published in the Spring 2011 edition of the literary journal Descant.

IMDB

Trailer

Find out more about the film here.

Synopsis

This observational documentary follows a year in the lives of two inspirational teachers at Headfort, the only primary-age boarding school in Ireland. Housed in an 18th century estate, school life embraces tradition and modernity.

For John, rock music is just another subject alongside Maths, Scripture and Latin, taught in a collaborative and often hilarious fashion. For his wife Amanda, the key to connecting with children is the book, and she uses all means to snare the young minds.

For nearly half a century these two have shaped thousands of minds, but now the unthinkable looms: what would retirement mean? What will keep them young if they leave?

Biography

Neasa Ní Chianáin started directing in 2001 with television documentaries. She has directed three feature documentaries, including the award-winning Frank Ned & Busy Lizzie, which won Best Feature award at The Celtic Film Festival 2004 and sold to broadcasters around the world; Fairytale of Kathmandu, which world premiered at IDFA 2007 in the Silver Wolf Competition and was subsequently invited to 25 international festivals and won 3 international awards; The Stranger, which premiered in Locarno FF 2014; and her most recent film, School Life, which had its world premiere in the Feature Documentary Competition at IDFA in November 2016.

Co-Director:

David Rane has produced award-winning documentary feature films, including Fairytale of Kathmandu (2007), The Stranger (2014), School Life (2016), animated films, including the BAFTA-winning Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2002), and short fiction films. His company, Soilsiú Films, is a regular recipient of Creative Europe funding, and has had work screened in France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, and the U.S. David is the founder and festival director of Guth Gafa International Documentary Festival.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Soilsiú Films. Used with permission.

IMDB

Trailer

Find out more about the film here.

And learn more about Kyoko here.

Synopsis

"IDOLS" has fast become a phenomenon in Japan as girl bands and pop music permeate Japanese life. TOKYO IDOLS - an eye-opening film gets at the heart of a cultural phenomenon driven by an obsession with young female sexuality and Internet popularity.

This ever-growing phenomenon is told through Rio, a bona fide "Tokyo Idol" who takes us on her journey toward fame. Now meet her "brothers": a group of adult middle aged male super fans (ages 35 - 50) who devote their lives to following her—in the virtual world and in real life. Once considered to be on the fringes of society, the "brothers" who gave up salaried jobs to pursue an interest in female idol culture have since blown up and have now become mainstream via the internet, illuminating the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.

With her provocative look into the Japanese pop music industry and its focus on traditional beauty ideals, filmmaker Kyoko Miyake confronts the nature of gender power dynamics at work. As the female idols become younger and younger, Miyake offers a critique on the veil of internet fame and the new terms of engagement that are now playing out IRL around the globe.

Biography

Born in Japan, Kyoko Miyake studied history at Tokyo University and then moved to Britain to research the history of witchcraft at Oxford. Her film Brakeless won a Peabody Award after airing on PBS and BBC.

Her first film, My Atomic Aunt, was supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, BBC, WDR, and NHK, and it was recently broadcast on PBS. Hackney Lullabies won the Berlin Today Award at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Kyoto Miyake. Eye Steels Films. Used with permission.