Event Details
June 23, 2024
10:00 am – 6:00 pm EDT
Centre for Social Innovation, 720 Bathurst Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2R4
Join us for a day of immersive learning and networking at the Toronto Arab Film’s exclusive industry event, tailored specifically for directors and producers. Dive into insightful panels and connect with like-minded professionals at our networking socials. Elevate your craft, expand your network, and unlock new opportunities in the vibrant world of Arab cinema in Canada and beyond.
10:00 am – 10:45 am Breakfast
11:00 am – 12:00 pm Panel: Feature Film Funding in Canada
Speakers:
Christina Piovesan
Christina Piovesan is the founder and principal of First Generation Films, a film and tv production company based in Toronto. Past films include the Cannes Winner Amreeka directed by Cherien Dabis; The Whistleblower directed by Larysa Kondracki, Mouthpiece directed by Patricia Rozema, Paper Year, written and directed by Rebecca Addelman and American Woman directed by Semi Chellas which had its Canadian premiere as a Gala Presentation at TIFF 2019. Her collaboration with Elevation Productions, the production arm of Elevation Pictures, has Christina in post-production on The Exchange directed by Dan Mazer and French Exit directed by Azazel Jacobs. Most recently, Christina was producer on The Nest directed by Sean Durkin which had its premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival
Shant Joshi
Shant Joshi is an award-winning producer and president of Fae Pictures, based in New York and Toronto, on a mission to decolonize Hollywood. His credits include award winners at Sundance (Framing Agnes), Red Sea (In Flames), Iris Prize (Scaring Women at Night), Durban (Runs in the Family), premieres at Cannes, Toronto, Canneseries (Streams Flow From A River), Aspen (I Live Here), Palm Springs (Diaspora), Hot Docs, Black Star (Noor and Layla), Bentonville, and BFI London, and nominees for the Canadian Screen Awards (Queen Tut). He was also an executive producer on Nisha Pahuja’s Academy Award ® nominated film To Kill A Tiger, an impact producer on John Greyson’s TEDDY Award-winning film International Dawn Chorus Day, and an associate producer on Ingrid Veninger’s Canadian Screen Award-nominated film Porcupine Lake.
Shant currently sits on CMPA’s Restructuring, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Action Committee, and previously was Co-Chair of the BIPOC TV & Film Board, and co-founder of the Future of Film Showcase.
He is an alum of the Canadian Film Centre, Rotterdam Lab, and Osgoode Hall Law School, and was named a MIPTV Producer to Watch, Reelworld Trailblazer, nominated for an Indiescreen Award, and to York University’s Top 30 Changemakers under 30.
Aeschylus Poulus
Aeschylus Poulus launched Hawkeye Pictures as the Executive Producer on the feature film SLEEPING GIANT. Prior to Hawkeye, Aeschylus was a Producer at Foundry Films (CAIRO TIME, THE BANG BANG CLUB), where he co-produced Ruba Nadda’s thriller INESCAPABLE, starring Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei, and Kate Melville’s acclaimed PICTURE DAY, starring Sundance award-winner Tatiana Maslany; and at Blue Ice where he co-produced the mini-series The Book of Negroes and the thriller OCTOBER GALE, starring Patricia Clarkson. Aeschylus actively forges relationships with domestic and international partners, broadcasters and distributors.
12:15 pm – 01:15 pm Panel: Producer Development in Canada & Beyond
Speakers:
Shonna Foster
Shonna Foster is a highly visual director whose work truthfully centers story and character. She is passionately invested in telling stories that prioritize, investigate, and celebrate Black and POC experiences, and which explore universal themes through relatable characters with strong points of view.
A graduate from York University’s Creative Ensemble Theatre Conservatory (BFA Honors), Shonna is described as an ‘actor’s director’ who is all-in, highly committed and collaborative in her approach to the work. She is known for her ability to direct raw talent in scenes with high emotional stakes, and has a strong ability to create compelling imagery through her work in scripted narrative, documentary and branded content. In addition, her passion combined with her reputation for working closely with writers elevates her tenacity for discovering and leaning into compelling stories that lift off the page.
Shonna made her directorial debut with the short film Residue which debuted at the Reelworld Film Festival, and was also licensed for national television broadcast and streaming through CBC’s Gem. Residue was featured on Breakfast Television, CBC Arts, CHCH TV, TO Indie and Black on Both Sides. Her second film Mothers: Out of A Pandemic, a documentary short Executive Produced by Jennifer Podemski and Lauren Grant is currently in the 2023/2024 festival circuit and won the “Best Long Form Short Documentary Film” at the Toronto Documentary Feature & Short Film Festival. Shonna has also directed impactful branded content, including the Gold Series x Pantene campaign which won MLS and Procter & Gamble the Grocer Impact Award.
As a director, Shonna has successfully completed one-on-one mentorships and director observer-shadowing positions with some of the industry’s leading directors and producers in Canada and the US on various television and film productions. Her impressive resume highlights almost two decade of key positions and executive positions she has held at award-winning production companies, distribution companies and deeply rooted organizations in Canada’s film and television industry. Shonna has worked on productions for Paramount Pictures/Elevation Pictures, Sony Pictures/Lifetime, Warner/OWN, CBC, Reel One Entertainment, Pier 21 Films, and Bell Media. As a highly regarded team member and sought after asset, Shonna’s all encompassing employment experiences have made her a director who comes with a thorough understanding of the production process and pipeline. A producer’s dream!
Shonna credits her parents’ and Grandparents love of film, television, and music for planting the seed in her developing an understanding of storytelling and deep appreciation and passion for the art of the moving image from a very young age. Whether she was engaged in an extracurricular creative activity or working on set as a child actor, Shonna would watch performers, directors, and crew work at their craft with both intrigue and fascination. She knew from a young age that the world of film and television was where she felt most at home.
Shonna deeply loves the process of creating and feels equally at home in rehearsal, on set, in a writers room, and in an editing suite. She hopes to leave this world with a body of work that is impactful, motivating, transcends time, elevates the Black community and shifts the world just a little bit. She believes this is best achieved through fostering truthful and meaningful connections with other human beings globally and through the process of collaborating on important works of art – one episode, film, and commercial at a time.
Coral Aiken
Coral Aiken is a director, producer, and hobby gardener based in Toronto. Through her company Aiken Heart Films (AHF), founded in 2014, Coral has been supporting Canadian filmmakers to create short films and narrative features for over a decade.
Coral’s films have screened in competition at Cannes Cinéfondation, TIFF, Sarajevo, Seattle, Buenos Aires, in the Locarno Academy, and on Nowness.com. AHF is currently in post on The Well, the highly anticipated, narrative feature debut from Oscar-nominated director Hubert Davis. The Well will be released globally by XYZ Films.
Directed by the acclaimed Canadian director Valerie Buhagiar, Carmen (2022) is Aiken Heart’s first international co-production. Shot in Malta and starring Natascha McElhone, Carmen premiered at the Whistler Film Festival in 2021 winning best cinematography in the Borsos competition, and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick.
Coral Aiken studied as a director at York University, MFA and at Berlinale Talents. She is an alumna of TIFF Studio, and EAVE. Coral teaches at LIFT, York University and the Canadian Film Centre.
Coral is represented by the United Talent Agency as a line producer and has worked for clients including Lionsgate, Elevation Pictures, Lisa Pictures, Discovery Channel, National Film Board of Canada, Scythia Films, Film Forge, MDFF, and Babe Nation Creations.
Dan Montgomery
Dan Montgomery, b. 1985, is a Toronto-based producer of film and commercials. In 2009 he co-founded the production company MDFF. His short and feature length films have screened at some of the world’s top festivals including: the New York Film Festival, Cannes Critics’ Week, Berlinale, Venice, Locarno, SXSW and TIFF. His 2022 feature, THE MAIDEN, premiered in competition as part of Giornate degli Autori at the 79th Venice Film Festival where it won the Cinema of the Future Award. His most recent feature MATT AND MARA had its world premiere at the 74th Berlinale as part of the competition program Encounters.
As a freelance commercial line producer, he has worked for such production companies as Animals, Merchant, CANADA, Radioaktivefilm, Eleanor, Smuggler, Steam, Colossale, OPC, Furlined, Love Song, Tool of North America, Revolver, Asymetric, Suneeva, as well as various ad agencies: Energy BBDO, Preacher, Rethink, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Deutsch LA, GUT, TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, Cossette, FCB, Leo Burnett, Anomaly, Juliet, The Hive, lg2, Wunderman Thompson, Motive, TAXI, Erich & Kallman, among others.
In addition to producing films, he has also co-run a monthly screening series in Toronto since 2013, MDFF Selects now presented at the TIFF Lightbox.
01:15 pm – 02:15 pm Lunch
02:15 pm – 03:15 pm Mentorship Meetings
Filmmakers interested in applying to the mentorship meetings must indicate their interest via this form. Limited spaces available.
3:30-4:30pm: Panel: Impact Producing & the Power of Community
Speakers:
Sholeh Fabbri
Sholeh Alemi Fabbri has been producing award-winning content for two decades and has received three Canadian Screen Award nominations. For seven years as the Executive Producer of Entertainment Tonight Canada, Sholeh built the ET Canada brand for broadcast and online. Her award-winning special Canada Together: In Concert showcased superstars including Shania Twain, Lady A, and Christopher Plummer raising over $300,000 for Food Banks Canada and music industry personnel impacted by the Covid-19 shutdowns. Working with HitPlay Productions on Last of the Right Whales about the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, marks Sholeh’s return to documentary storytelling. She is currently developing Eclipse, a feature film with co-producer Heather Haldane (Maudie) as well as other projects on her growing slate. Sholeh sits on two boards including Story Money Impact, a charity which connects mediamakers to changemakers and Artists for Peace and Justice (Canada), a non-profit organization that supports access to education for impoverished youth in Haiti. Being able to transform inspiration into impact is incredibly rewarding and why Sholeh launched Good Measure Productions.
Anna Fahr
Anna Fahr is a multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, educator, and founder of Morning Bird Pictures Inc. (formerly Sepasi Films, est. 2003), a production company dedicated to creating films with social impact that focus on the contemporary Middle East and its diaspora.
Anna’s last narrative short, Transit Game examines the refugee crisis in Lebanon against the backdrop of the Syrian war. The film screened in over fifty international festivals since premiering in the fall of 2014, winning prizes in Berlin, San Francisco and Florence, among others.
Anna’s first independent feature-length documentary, Khaneh Ma: These Places We Call Home, examines questions of cultural identity and dual-nationality from the vantage point of three generations of Iranians living in Iran, Canada, and Germany. The film screened in international festivals worldwide and was theatrically released in Montreal.
Anna’s latest projects include two interactive web documentaries that focus on experiences of exile and migration through a female lens. Migrant Mothers of Syria was financed by the Bell Fund and produced in collaboration with Emmy award-winning new media company, Stitch Media. The webdoc recently premiered as part of the Academy Award qualifying Doc Edge Festival’s Exhibition program and won a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Digital Media at the 2020 Yorkton Film Festival. My Life in Limbo was financed by the Canada Council for the Arts and premiered at Montreal Digital WebFest 2020, winning the Jury Prize.
Anna is currently in post-production on the feature-length narrative film, Valley of Exile (Prod. Morning Bird Pictures, Six Island Productions, Hawkeye Pictures) with financing from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council and in development on Places in Between (Prod. Clique Pictures, Rep. Great North Artists Management) with financing from the Harold Greenberg Fund and Telefilm Canada.
Anna holds a BFA in Film Production from Concordia University in Montreal, an MFA in Screenwriting from Hollins University in Virginia and an MA in Film and Middle Eastern Studies from New York University.
For more information about Anna’s current projects in development, please contact: info@annafahr.com
Chrisann Hessing
Chrisann Hessing is a documentary filmmaker and impact producer based in Toronto. She has produced award-winning short films that have screened at Hot Docs, RIDM, Global Impact Film Festival and the London Asian Film Festival. Her work has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council, Inspirit Foundation, BravoFACT! Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent and Telefilm Canada.
Chrisann’s short film, Turning Tables, won Best Short Documentary at the 43rd American Indian Film Festival, and has screened in over 30 film festivals internationally.
Her debut feature, We Will Be Brave, premiered at the Calgary International Film Festival and won Audience Choice Feature Film at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival in 2023.
She is passionate about using visual storytelling as a tool to educate, raise awareness, and inspire positive change, and has collaborated with a number of community arts organizations including TIFF, JAYU, and the Doc Institute. She currently sits on the board of POV Magazine.
She previously worked as Festival Manager at Breakthroughs Film Festival, the only festival in Canada devoted exclusively to short films made by emerging women & non binary directors
Currently, Chrisann works as an Associate Impact Producer at Ring Five Impact Docs, a boutique impact producing and grassroots distribution company based in Toronto.
Yazmeen Kanji
Yazmeen Kanji is a Muslim Indo-Caribbean filmmaker, the Advocacy and Outreach Lead at BIPOC TV & Film, as well as the founder of Films With A Cause – a consulting startup for authentic storytelling practices. She graduated as a Dean’s Scholar from the University of Toronto in 2020, where she studied Peace, Conflict and Justice Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity and Cinema Studies. Throughout her undergrad, Yazmeen was offered grants to work on research projects exploring the social and political consequences of misrepresenting marginalized communities. Yazmeen is a Hot Docs Accelerator Fellow, a member of the Transmedia Zone and Social Ventures Zone at TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University) and a cohort member of Inspirit’s Narrative Change Lab alongside other Muslim creatives and content creators.
Her first documentary, From Syria To Hope (2019), explores the resettlement of Syrian refugee families and was awarded Best Short Doc at the 2019 Toronto Short Film Festival. Yazmeen directed With Love From Munera (2020), about a young storyteller’s healing journey, which premiered at the 2020 Inside Out Film Festival and was an official selection at TIFF Next Wave 2021 and the 2021 Breakthroughs Film Festival. With Love From Munera won the Audience Choice Award at the Breakthroughs Film Festival and Yazmeen was a guest on CBC Metro Morning to discuss the film’s success. With Love From Munera is available to stream on the digital TIFF Bell Lightbox site and has screened at the TIFF Bell Lightbox numerous times. Yazmeen has directed video series for organizations including World Table (2020) about refugee chefs for Matthew House and an anti-hate series for the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, highlighting Muslim women and non-binary people who have faced discrimination within and beyond their communities. Yazmeen also directed Eadie’s first music video, L.O.E (Loyalty Over Everything), released in June 2021.
Yazmeen supported Charles Officer’s production company, Canesugar Filmworks, and projects directed by the Oscar nominated Sami Khan. Yazmeen has worked on CBC original series including The Porter and Zarqa as the Social Media Manager, as well as a cultural consultant on a number of documentaries.
Yazmeen’s first narrative short about an Indo-Caribbean Muslim teen who daydreams throughout her day will be released in the Fall of 2023, partially funded by the Ontario Arts Council. Yazmeen is in development on her first feature film funded by the Hot Docs Cross Currents Fund and executive produced by Charles Officer and Jake Yanowski – a documentary following the journey of one of the first recipients of a Bone Marrow Transplant to be potentially cured of Sickle Cell Disease in Canada.
Alongside her filmmaking work, Yazmeen publicly speaks about the importance of representing communities of her intersections and works in consulting capacities on productions to ensure stories and marketing campaigns portray historically marginalized communities in meaningful ways.
04:30 pm – 06:00 pm Social
Breakfast & lunch included
Special thanks to our community partner DGC Ontario and venue partner Centre for Social Innovation
