Talent

Recognized by Playback as one of Canada’s 10 to Watch, Renuka Singh is a Vancouver-based screenwriter with roots in Kitimat, B.C. She has developed TV series projects with CBC, Bell Media, and Corus Entertainment, and most recently, served as the Executive Story Editor on Reginald The Vampire S2, and wrote on the Netflix series I Woke Up a Vampire. She is an alumna of the Pacific Screenwriting Program's (PSP) Scripted Series Lab, a fellow of the BIPOC TV & Film Showrunner Training Bootcamp, and a member of the PSP board. She is represented by the Jennifer Hollyer Agency.

Abdul Malik is a Canadian-Pakistani screenwriter based out of Toronto and Edmonton. He dropped out of film school to pursue politics, spending his twenties working in the labour movement, and participating in worker struggles in rural Canada as an organizer and photojournalist. Abdul returned to the film industry, starting as the co-writer of the Telefilm-funded Peace by Chocolate, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Recently, Abdul’s written on season three of CTV’s Transplant, the upcoming Telefilm-funded feature Queen Tut, and was Co-EP on the Super Channel digital series Streams Flow from a River.

Abdul is currently a Supervising Producer on the upcoming CBC Drama, Allegiance. He has projects in development with companies such as Shaftesbury, Husk Media, Counterfeit Pictures, and Buzzfeed Studios. Abdul is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre and a member of the Writers Guild of Canada.

Abdul’s work as a photographer and journalist has been carried by outlets such as the CBC, Narwhal, and the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation.

Ashley Park is a Korean Canadian screenwriter and producer based in Ontario. Ashley has written for TV, film, and games with a diverse portfolio of credits that include Travelers (Showcase/Netflix), Killjoys (Space/SyFy), Watch Dogs: Legion (Ubisoft Toronto), Circuit Breakers (AppleTV+), Wong and Winchester (Rogers), along with the upcoming series Gangnam Project (CBC/CBBC) and Star Wars Outlaws (Massive) to be released in 2024.

Ashley is a fellow of the BIPOC TV & Film Showrunner Bootcamp, CFC Prime Time TV Program, and Bell Media Diverse Screenwriter’s Program. Ashley served as a mentor for the WGC Script of the Month, and has had short fiction published in Fireside Magazine.

Kadidja Haïdara is the writer behind Vrak’s most popular youth program of the decade, Le chalet. The first season, for which she wrote all 13 episodes, won the Grand Prix d'Excellence from the Youth Media Alliance (Alliance Médias Jeunesse), the Favorite Program trophy at the KARV anti.gala, and the Gémeaux for Best Script: Youth.

Recipient of the Louise-Spickler Excellence Scholarship, Kadidja won the TOU.TV Writing Scholarship upon graduating from INIS, and scripted Les béliers, a hyper-realistic sports drama that won the 2014 NUMIX Award for Best Web TV: Fiction and Drama. Kadidja collected a 2nd NUMIX Award the following year for Quart de vie, a feminist coming-of-age comedy.

In addition to the projects she develops, Kadidja is a script-editor, mentor, and trainer. In 2019, she was part of the first pedagogical committee for INIS's program “Mixte: Documentary and Fiction”, aimed exclusively at Afro-descendant or Indigenous creators, in addition to acting as Head of the Writing Profile during the intensive program’s six month run.

Most recently, she was a member of the education committee of the N.A.W.A.L. Association’s VOLUME Program, where she had the pleasure of working with the very first cohort of women from North African and West Asian communities.

In 2016, the Alliance des femmes des industries créatives honored her at its benefit gala.

Laura Kamugisha is a Montreal-based screenwriter, director, and producer of Rwandan and Congolese origin. Her films explore notions of cultural identity, memories, and intergenerational baggage through visual poetry. Her short films include Les Lavandières (VIFF, FNC, FIN 2023), Trait d'Union (RIDM 2020), and Mitochondrial (FNC 2020).

Laura holds a Bachelor's degree in Film Production from Concordia University, and would describe her projects – and herself – as sensitive, stubborn, and intuitive. She was part of the inaugural cohort of directors for the New York based collective, Brown Girls Doc Mafia in 2021. She is developing a fiction series called La Saison, thanks to the Rogers-BSO Fund.

Laura’s desire to act as a voice for marginalized creators led her to found the production company SAGE COMME UN ORAGE, where she produces various projects including fiction, documentary, experimental, and hybrid works.

Léa Geronimo (they/she) is a Filipino-Caucasian, Franco-Québécois writer-director raised in a small town near Montreal. Now, in Toronto, Léa works on writing, directing, and developing their own slate of original tv series ideas. Their work explores the more complicated, and sometimes difficult, parts of being human through the lens of their own offbeat sense of humour.

Léa has worn many hats in the entertainment industry, coming from live theatre, moving into short films, and then television. They’ve been selected for many competitive programs, including the BIPOC TV & Film Showrunner Bootcamp led by Anthony Q. Farrell, Warren P. Sonoda’s Directing Masterclass, the Women In The Director’s Chair Story and Leadership Program (WIDC), the Netflix-Banff DOV initiative, and REELWORLD’s E20 development program, to name a few.

Most recently, they’ve directed on a couple of new childrens’ TV shows (CBC Kids, TVO) and have written for the Peabody Award-winning series, Sort Of (CBC, MAX), for which they’ve received a nomination for Best Writing in a Comedy Series from the Writers Guild of Canada.

Nisha Khan is a Pakistani-Canadian writer and producer from Toronto who has gone on to work in media through film festivals, magazines, and television. She has written for publications such as SHARP Magazine, The International Indian Film Festival of Toronto (IIFFT) magazine, Brown Girl Magazine, and more. Her work tries to push the needle in changing South Asian and Muslim representation on screen.

Nisha is a co-creator, co-producer, and co-writer behind Get Up, Aisha, an IPF x CMF 2022 development fund recipient that releases on CBC Gem in 2024. She has written for Murdoch Mysteries (Netflix/CBC Gem), Happy House of Frightenstein (Headspinner), and has developed a number of projects (Saloon Media, Marble Media). The Bus Ride, a short film she has written, is currently in production. She has won MPAC Hollywood’s Children’s Animation Writing Fellowship as well as the Magee TV Diversity Screenwriting Mentorship award with her crime procedural Honey. She’s currently in the works with a crime drama and a mafia-style comedy.

Ophira Calof is an award winning Disabled writer and performer who is drawn to character driven stories that combine humour and heart while subverting narrative tropes. Their recent credits include One More Time (CBC), Rubble and Crew (Treehouse TV), PUSH (CBC), Shelved (CTV), TallBoyz (CBC), Dino Dex (Amazon Prime), and Welcome (Titan1Studios).

Ophira is fascinated by the relationship between creative process and content and seeks to “Crip the script”, centring disability knowledge and experience. They have provided mentorship internationally on storytelling, accessibility, and disability narratives, and worked as the Creative Director for the Accessible Writers’ Lab, a national initiative experimenting with accessibility in TV writing rooms (CMF/Telefilm/AMI/RAFFTO). They have also designed and produced several multimedia projects including the series Making Space: Stories of Disabled Youth in the GTA (Myseum Toronto/MNJCC) and Dis/Play, a public arts project weaving together stories of over 50 disabled creatives (RAFFTO/ArtWorxTO).

Taf Diallo is a Guinean-Canadian screenwriter who writes character-engaging crime dramas with socio-political undertones. He is an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre, and in 2022, he was selected as a fellow in Netflix's Diversity of Voices Initiative at the Banff World Media Festival. He has worked as a story editor on shows like The Porter (CBC, BET+) and written for procedurals like Hudson & Rex (Citytv).

Before pursuing a career in screenwriting, Taf attended Western University, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in political science. His professional background includes valuable contributions to projects at the African Development Bank, with a focus on poverty eradication and fostering sustainable economic development across African nations. These experiences drive his artistic goal of crafting character-centric dramas that delve into the struggles faced by marginalized groups as they navigate institutions and circumstances that present ongoing challenges.

Taf was born in Guinea and immigrated to the United States and Canada as a child. He is currently based in Toronto.

Trey Anthony is a Jamaican-British-Canadian truth-teller, award-winning writer, playwright, and producer. She is the first Black woman in Canada to have her own prime-time series on a major network. Trey has appeared on NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, Fox, CTV, CBC, City TV, and Global Television. She has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, the Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun, the Globe and Mail, Essence Magazine, and Madame Noire.

Trey is a former writer for CBC, OWN, Lionsgate, The Comedy Network, The Women’s Television Network, and Global Television. She is also a contributing writer for Huffington Post and the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper. She was a participant in the BIPOC TV & Film Showrunner Training Bootcamp in 2021.

Trey’s award-winning play, Da Kink in My Hair, received four NAACP awards including Best New Playwright. It has grossed millions, been critically acclaimed, and was named one of the top ten plays in Canada’s theatrical history. She recently adapted her new play, How Black Mothers Say I Love You, into a film, which was shortlisted at Sundance.