Event Details
June 8, 2023
6:00 – 7:30 PM EDT
Goethe Institute, 100 University Ave, Toronto, ON M5J 1V6
There are many entry ways into the film industry as an emerging filmmaker, whether you want to direct, write, produce or work below the line. This panel focuses on three particular Canadian institutions: Reelworld Institute, Toronto Arts Council and Director’s Guild of Canada. Representatives from each organization will outline the opportunities available to those who want to work in the industry and answer your questions about any of the programs they run.
Speakers:
Safia Abdigir
Safia Abdigir is a Toronto-based arts culture worker specifically interested in the facilitation of diverse perspectives in the Canadian film/visual arts industry. Currently, she’s the Industry Programming Manager at the Reelworld Screen Institute, where she manages the programming of the film festival and runs the year long Producer Programs.
Timaj Garad
Timaj Garad is an Ethiopian-Harari Toronto-based multidisciplinary storyteller (poet, actress, singer-songwriter), arts educator, and community organizer. She works at Toronto Arts Council, where I develop and manage the Black Arts program for Black artists and Black-led organizations. She creates music with genre-bending mix of spoken word poetry, hip-hop, and R&B, soul, afro-jazz, and dance. In 2017, she founded LUMINOUS Fest, Canada’s first Black Muslim arts festival, and later co-founded The Sisters’ Retreat, a retreat series hosting arts-based wellness retreats for Muslim Women.
Marwa Siam Abdou
Marwa Siam Abdou is a film director, a writer and freelance journalist. She is currently the National Outreach manager at the Directors Guild of Canada, a union representing members in the areas of direction, design, production and editing in the country. At the Guild, she oversees and manages equity-focused initiatives and campaigns that amplify the voices of racialized members. Her professional and creative work align, as she is also focused on portraying and telling the stories of people of colour, and particularly women, in her films.