Talent

Born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, ABT got his storytelling gene from his Guyanese mother, a charismatic orator and wordsmith. By watching his mother preach the word and catch the spirit every Sunday in church he learned the basic principles of drama. At a young age ABT began writing tall tales (also known as lying) which he found to be an effective coping mechanism through traumatic times. Once he discovered the art of filmmaking, ABT made a series of bad but very watchable short films that convinced him he could do this "writing thing" for a living. Despite years and years of rejection, it turns out he might have been onto something.

Berend McKenzie they are an award-winning playwright, actor, producer, screenwriter, and published author living on Treaty 6 land otherwise known as Edmonton Alberta, Canada. Berend is best known for his ground-breaking, Jessie Richardson Award nominated one-person show NGGRFG. They have worked with Oscar winning actresses Halle Berry and Angelina Jolie. Berend is currently writing their first auto-fiction novel, Adopted. In October 2021 Berend’s short story Hockey Night in Canada will be published in the anthology Between Certain Death and A Possible Future: Queer Writing in Growing up with the AIDS Crisis (Arsenal Pulp Press).

Christine Rodriguez was born and raised in Montreal (Tio'tia:ke). She is the award-winning playwright of Dreaming in Autism, which earned third prize at Ottawa Little Theatre’s 72nd National One-Act Playwriting Competition; The Autism Monologues, which received Honourable Mention at the 2018 Montreal Fringe Festival, and Simone, Half and Half, produced by Black Theatre Workshop in February 2020, receiving five Montreal English Theatre Award nominations including one for Outstanding New Text. Her feature screenplay Maya Rising received Honorable Mention at the Mid-Atlantic Black Film Festival in 2010 and her feature screenplay The Arrangement was a finalist in the 2009 Latino Screenplay Competition. Christine wrote, directed and produced her first short film, FUEGO, in 2020 which will screen as an Official selection in the World Showcase at the 2021 American Black Film Festival. The film, part of Black Wealth Media’s inaugural Black Ink mentorship program, was filmed in English, French and Spanish. She holds a Certificate of Professional Screenwriting from UCLA and her work is largely informed by her mixed race Afro-Caribbean heritage and her multicultural environment.

Corey Payette is proud of his Oji-Cree heritage from Northern Ontario and has worked as a writer, actor, composer, and director across Canada. He is the Artistic Director of Urban Ink, past Artist-in-Residence with National Arts Centre [NAC] English Theatre, and is the founding Artistic Director of Raven Theatre. Selected credits: Children of God (Urban Ink, NAC English Theatre, Citadel Theatre, Western Canada Theatre, Segal Centre), Moonlodge (Urban Ink/NAC English Theatre), Our Town (Caravan Farm Theatre), Les Filles du Roi (Urban Ink/Raven Theatre), and Sedna (Urban Ink/Caravan Farm Theatre). He is currently directing the documentary feature "Stories that Transform Us" (Urban Ink). His next new musicals have been commissioned by Musical Stage Company (Toronto), Bard on the Beach (Vancouver), and the Stratford Festival. He was awarded the John Hirsch Prize from the Canada Council, Jessie Awards for Composition and Direction, Ovation Awards for Best New Musical and Outstanding Direction, and most recently was a recipient of the BC Award for Reconciliation.

Faisal is a screenwriter, and most recently wrote on Endlings (CBC / Hulu) and Ransom (CBS / Global). He is an alum of the CFC / Netflix Accelerator, the TIFF Writers Studio, and a winner of the WGC Bell Media Diverse Screenwriters Program. As a director, Faisal made the short “Useless Things” (2009) which won the Writers Guild of Canada English Script Prize at the Festival Nouveau Cinema Montreal, and the labour rights feature documentary My Cultural Divide (2006).

Born in India, Gaurav moved to Russia at age eighteen to study at the prestigious Russian Institute of Cinema (VGIK) founded by Sergei Eisenstein. There he studied under the tutelage of Vadim Yusov and Aleksander Knizhinsky, the legendary cinematographers of Andrei Tarkovsky, and six years later he graduated with a Master’s Degree in Cinematography & Film Direction. Gaurav then relocated to Canada to make his first feature film A PASSAGE TO OTTAWA, which won several international awards, including the CRYSTAL BEAR (Special Mention) at the BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL. Gaurav's next project was a charming romantic comedy called SWEET DESTINY produced by Vancouver-based Brightlight Pictures. In 2016 he wrote and directed sci-fi thriller PRISONER X which won the Critics’ Choice Award at FANTASPORTO and screened at Cannes as part of Perspective Canada. Gaurav’s latest film is sci-fi drama ENTANGLED aka MULTIVERSE starring Academy Award Winner Marlee Matlin.

Jay Cardinal Villeneuve, a Nêhiyawi- Bush Cree/Métis, emerged from hustling VHS rentals at Video Gallery in Slave Lake Alberta, Treaty 8 territory to nabbing a Theatre scholarship for College, where he subsequently dropped out and hitchhiked to Vancouver Coast Salish lands to work in film & television. After short stints in TV, independent film, radio, KFC, telemarketing and street theatre, he snuck into Capilano University where he paid his dues by selling VFS students short film scripts for their assignments, then graduated from the Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking program, with honours. His many YouTube short films have gone the opposite of viral, but some have actually played in film festivals. As an actor, you can see him in some cool movies like Beans and Brother I Cry, and even a TV show here and there, like Get Shorty. As a filmmaker he managed to snag some hardware for his films like the critically acclaimed Holy Angels and Is That One of Your Jokes; which is not a question, or a joke, but the title of the film. Jay is basically what would happen if Mark Buffalo and Blanche Devereaux from Golden Girls, had an illegitimate love child that was raised in a small town surrounded by dense forest; and people LOL! He also has three rad kids who are not illegitimate.

Jessica Meya is an award-winning writer with a strong passion for character-driven stories. Jessica has written for Hulu's Holly Hobbie, CBC Gem's Detention Adventure and CTV's Children Ruin Everything. She was a recipient of the Toronto Screenwriting Conference Breakthrough Artist Award in 2018, given by Ben Watkins, creator of Amazon’s Hand of God, and in 2020, she was selected to participate in the BANFF World Media Festival's Diversity of Voices Initiative sponsored by Netflix. This year she has received ACTRA Toronto’s Sandi Ross Award for her work as co-founder of diversity initiative Working the Scene in Colour and a Canadian Screen Award for Best Writing, Children’s or Youth for her work on Detention Adventure. Meya is a graduate of the CFC Bell Media Prime Time TV Program and currently has projects in development with Shaftesbury, CBC and Lark Productions.

Alongside recent work on CBC’s Coroner, JP Larocque has written on CTV’s JANN, CBC’s Diggstown, Netflix’s Another Life, Shudder's Slasher, and is creator and executive producer of the OutTV digital series Gay Nerds. As a journalist, JP has bylines in The Toronto Star, The Walrus, Maclean’s, Xtra, The Beaverton, and Flare. A proud member of both the 2SLGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, JP is committed to diversity and inclusion in all of their work.

Mayumi Yoshida is a Japanese Actor, Writer, Director, Voice Actor and Japanese dialect coach / Cultural Consultant based in North America. She is known for her role as Crown Princess (The Man in The High Castle) which got her a nomination for Best Emerging Actor at UBCP Awards. As an award winning writer/director she has been a leading force in emerging Asian-Canadian Cinema. “TOKYO LOVERS” has won Best Performance Award at Vancouver Asian Film Festival, Best short at Japan Film Festival LA. Her directorial debut film “AKASHI” has won Outstanding Writer out of 4500 films at NBCUniversal Short Film Festival, Best Female Director at Vancouver Short Film Festival and many more internationally. In 2019, she received the Newcomer award at Vancouver Women in Film Festival’s Spotlight awards for her success in multiple fields. Mayumi is currently developing her first feature film, which she will be writing, directing and acting in.

Michael Hanley is a writer and director based in Toronto. He has written for multiple series including Apple TV’s The Snoopy Show, CBBC’s The Next Step, and most recently, season two of Hulu’s The Hardy Boys. As a director, Michael’s films have screened at festivals internationally with his latest, You Will Still Be Here Tomorrow, winning Best Canadian Short at the 2021 Inside Out Film Festival. Michael is an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Writer’s Lab and is currently in development on his own original drama series with eOne.

Mona Zaidi is an award-winning South Asian-Canadian writer/director. Her lifelong fascination with classic literature, art and mythology from around the world has led to a diverse body of work across multiple formats including television, film, theatre, animation and gaming. Her work has been applauded at film and theatre festivals around the world, as well as in Cineplex movie theatres across Canada. She was recently featured on the cover of Alt.Theatre Magazine, Canada's only professional arts journal examining intersections between politics, cultural plurality, social activism and the arts. Mona is based in Toronto, Canada.

Murry Peeters is an actor/screenwriter. Recent screenwriting credits include: The Parker-Andersons and Amelia Parker. Her screen credits include NBC’s Taken, Far Cry 5 and My Little Pony. Peeters and her past acting experience enable her to write material populated by richly diverse and layered characters. She is an alumna of the Canadian Film Center's 2018 Writers' Lab, a 2018 Magee TV Diverse Screenwriters Award recipient and a Netflix-Banff 2019 & 2020 Diversity of Voices participant. Peeters spearheaded #StartWith8HollywoodNorth, a program aimed at connecting industry leaders and emerging women and non-binary, BIPOC creatives.

With appearances on Comedy Network’s critically acclaimed The Beaverton as well as People of Earth, Kim’s Convenience and The Expanse, Nile is also known as Alister on the Canadian Screen Award nominated City TV sitcom Second Jen.

Nile has performed at the Just for Laughs Festival, San Francisco Sketchfest, the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, the Halifax Comedy Festival and the Boston Comedy Festival. A three time Canadian Comedy Award nominee, he has also opened for Gregg Proops, James Adomian, Janeane Garofalo, Greg Behrendt, Aparna Nancherla and Hannibal Buress.

Nile has written for Comedy Network’s The Beaverton as well as This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Tallboys, the Gemini Award wining The Hour (where he was a regular on air contributor) as well as Space’s final two seasons of Killjoys and most recently The Hardy Boys (Hulu). He was also nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for his writing on CBC’s Still Standing.

Ryan Cooper is an Ojibwe, two spirited, LGBTQ+ Producer from Treaty One Territory Peguis First Nation. Ryan is a graduate of the National Screen Institute's CBC New Indigenous Voices program, The NSI Indigidocs program where he had the opportunity to produce an award-winning short documentary that went on to be programmed in festivals all around the globe.

Ryan is the creator of two web series, one titled Daybreak People that has aired on Bell MTS Fibe TV1 in 2019 and the ImagineNative/APTN pitch winning series iNdigiThreads. Ryan is producing two TELEFILM TALENT TO WATCH one of which is INdigiThreads and Alter Boys. Alter Boys is also a part of the CFC Netflix series accelerator program. Ryan was also named as one of Playback’s Ten to Watch for 2021

Shakil Jessa is a queer Muslim writer, actor, and comedian currently living in Vancouver, Canada. When Shakil was younger, he would write comedy sketches to perform in his elementary school talent shows, which would eventually lead him to the world of stand up and acting. Shakil has acted on the CW’s Riverdale and Superman and Lois. Shakil has also written and script-consulted for one of the biggest youth YouTube channels with his videos garnering over two million views, and is now looking to transition into an older market. Being inspired by creators of colour that both write and star in their projects such as Ramy Youssef, Issa Rae and Michaela Coel, Shakil is currently working with WarnerMedia and the Canadian Academy to develop and star in a dramedy that showcases authentically what it is like growing up as a queer Muslim teenager in the twenty-first century. When he’s not acting or writing, you can find Shakil hunched over his sewing machine designing and sewing clothes, exploring local cafes, and hiking any trail he can find. For theatrical and commercial work Shakil is represented by Performers Management.

Stéphane Moukarzel is a filmmaker and screenwriter, a graduate in communications from both Concordia University and the INIS. His short films (Nous avions, Black Friday, Coup sauvage) have won many prizes, and been nominated for Jutras and for the Prix Écrans Canadiens 2014. His broadcast work, for Télé-Québec, Radio Canada, TV5 and TVA, has gotten him noticed for his original and meticulous work and have gathered several nominations for Gémeaux prize in the Best director category.

Vivian Lin is a Toronto writer and producer. Her previous writing credits include co-executive producer on Hudson Rex(CityTV/Shaftesbury), three seasons of Killjoys (SyFy/Space), Carter (WGN/Sony/Bravo), Bajillionaires (Universal Kids/DHX), and Daytime Emmy-nominated Holly Hobbie (Family/Hulu). She is a recipient of the Telefilm New Voices Award and the Bronze Prize at the Page Awards, and has been nominated for a Canadian Screen Award and a Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Award.