Talent

Agam Darshi is an international award winning actress and filmmaker, having worked alongside Oscar nominated director Deepa Mehta, and Emmy winner Ava Duvernay.

Agam Darshi's directorial debut Donkeyhead, which Agam wrote and starred in, was financed by Telefilm Canada, Creative Saskatchewan, SaskTel Max Equity, Canada Media Fund, BC and Federal tax credits and distributed by levelFILM. Donkeyhead was acquired by Array Now and released on Netflix in January 2022 in USA/UK/Australia and New Zealand. It was the opening film at MISAFF where it won Best Feature Film Award, Best Support Actor and Best editing, and won Best Direction at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival in 2022.

In 2018, Donkeyhead was one of only six scripts accepted into the Whistler Film Festival’s Praxis Screenwriting Lab and was awarded a $2000 grant by the St. John's International Women's Film Festival, in collaboration with the DGC.

Agam is a recipient of the illustrious Film Independent Project Involve 2020 Fellowship as a writer.

Berkley Brady is a Métis writer, director and producer based out of Treaty 7 territory, in Calgary, Alberta. She holds an MFA in Film from Columbia University in New York City, with a concentration in Directing.

Berkley's creative work in film has premiered at festivals across the world, including Cannes and Sundance. She has also directed for episodic TV and commercials, as well as music videos; she was nominated by the Director’s Guild of Canada for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for her episode on Louis Riel for The Secret History of the Wild West.

Most recently, she directed her first feature, Dark Nature, which will be featured at the Marché du Film at Cannes, as one of the top seven genre projects of 2022. She also directed Song of the Dead and The Grey Man, which will both be featured on upcoming horror anthologies for Amazon and Creepy Pasta.

Boris Rodriguez is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker. His first film Beso Nocturno (Night Kiss) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Discovery Section and was later selected for a 2006 retrospective at the MoMA in NYC. Boris’ feature debut, Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal was selected for prominent festivals including Tribeca and Karlovy Vary and garnered several awards including the coveted Méliès d’Argent award for Best Feature. On the heels of Eddie’s success, Boris was selected to participate in NBCUniversal’s prestigious Emerging Directors Program where he was primed to direct episodes for their scripted series on SyFy and USA.

Boris is developing several projects including Zoila and Andy, developed with the support of CFC-Netflix and for which he recently won the TIFF-CBC Films Screenwriter award.

Boris is fluent in English, French and Spanish and holds Canadian, Mexican, and EU citizenships as well as a US work permit.

Cazhhmere Downey is an international award-winning director. For over 17 years, she has directed artists ranging from Kardinal Offishall to the Backstreet Boys. Branching out from music videos in 2015, she teamed up with the CBC to direct the documentary Deeply Rooted (2017). She's currently gearing up for pre-production on her feature film debut.

Justin Wu was born and raised in Toronto and spent most of his 20s abroad living in Paris and New York for almost a decade. He has now returned to Toronto as his permanent base with an interest in directing narrative television across all genres.

Justin started out as a photojournalist and later made his big break as an internationally recognized fashion and portrait photographer working with the likes of Vogue, Elle, and GQ. He quickly transitioned into directing television commercials for international brands and his passion for filmmaking blossomed. Justin graduated from Ryan Murphy’s Half Initiative in 2018 on Fox’s 9-1-1 and his directorial debut was on CBC’s Kim’s Convenience. Justin’s episode garnered him a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Comedy Series by the Director’s Guild of Canada in 2021. Today, Justin aims to break into the one-hour drama space and continue to evolve as an artist.

Neegan Trudel is a director of Wendat and Quebecker origin. After embarking on a 3-year journey around the world, he decided to specialize himself in the industry of special effects and 3D animation. Looking for new tools and challenging ways to tell his stories, he completed the Cinema program from L'inis in 2017. In 2020, he finished his first feature film, Vacarme.

Randall Okita is a Japanese Canadian artist and filmmaker known for creating work that involves rich visual language and innovative approaches to story. His work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions, awarded internationally, and screened around the world.

Recent work includes directing the IFC feature film See for Me (Tribeca Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival), writing and directing the room-scale VR experience The Book of Distance (Sundance, Venice, Tribeca), and presenting A Place Between, a solo exhibition of artwork at the Prince Takamado Gallery in Tokyo.

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Okita lives and works in Toronto and Japan. Randall is an active mentor and instructor, grateful to participate in the building of vibrant creative communities that encourage communication and collaborative problem-solving. His favorite road snack is celery.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Reem Morsi worked as a professional scuba diver, and as a human rights officer at the UN and other organizations for over a decade.

Morsi’s short film include Their Feast (2012 TIFF, BBC, CineSud), The Door (Whistler, 2016 & Best Drama - Yorkton 2017 & multiple awards at WIFT Showcase 2018), Show & Tell (2016-WIFT/BravoFact winner) & Multiple Golden Sheaf Awards (Yorkton, 2017). Her first feature film, Hysteria, a Telefilm Talent to Watch/CFC/Netflix Accelerator/CCA is currently in post-production. Her second feature screened at TIFF Selects 2021. Reem has also directed episodes of Virgins, a CBC Gem series.

Morsi’s feature film script, Bootleg, received many accolades including the Rainin Grant/San Francisco Film Society (2016), Berlinale Script Lab 2018, and highlighted at the Berlinale Talents Opening Ceremony, participated at Realness Pan African Screenwriting Residency & Cannes Film Festival - La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde.

From being selected for Playback’s 10 to Watch 2021 to directing MARVEL’S Simu Liu in commercials, Sam MacAdam is an award-winning Guyanese-Canadian filmmaker, with a focus on comedy and horror.

Shawn Gerrard is a filmmaker from Toronto and alumnus of the York University film production and screenwriting program. Shawn has written and directed many short films, one feature film, as well as episodic television. Shawn's films have often focussed on characters who are contextualizing mixed-racial identities.

In 2020, Shawn was selected to participate in the TIFF Filmmaker Lab at the Toronto International Film Festival. In 2021, Shawn's film Inheritance screened at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the NBA Films for Fans program.