Reel Ideas: Conference

Kevin Matthew Wong is a theatre creator, producer, performer, projection designer, arts facilitator and environmentalist. He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Broadleaf Theatre, merging environmentalism and live performance. Kevin’s ongoing work The Chemical Valley Project is a multimedia solo-performance about environmentalism and reconciliation that has toured across Canada and to Germany. He’s currently working on projection design on a new work about authenticity and internet culture by Philip Nozuka.

Jennifer Chan is an artist and web developer with a creative identity crisis in Toronto. She makes videos, websites, and objects about sex, love, luxury, equality, and suffering. She has had solo shows at Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Images Festival, Transmediale, Future Gallery, and Galleri CC. In a past life she taught sessionally and published incendiary texts on websites like Rhizome and Furtherfield. Other achievements include being Yelp Elite since 2015 and teaching her cat to sit.

Shaheer Tarar is a documentary artist who uses satellite images, found footage and legal documents to trace historical events to the role they play in the contemporary moment. He pursues stories buried by time, space and sediment—studying artifacts from these stories that still remain and mediate our relationship to the past. These studies are presented as publications, websites and films.

Tommy Truong and Amanda Low, are co-founders of Broom Closet, an art collective comprised of a group of new media artists focusing on storytelling, archival practice, and ideas of ephemerality in technology. Truong and Low are both new media artists, emerging curators, and graduates from OCAD U’s Digital Painting and Expanded Animation Program. Low plays uses basic code to create web browser experiences. Truong’s practice explores ideas of technological obsession, screen-based media, and immersion.

V.T. Nayani (pron. 9’knee) is a director, performer, and writer dedicated to stories for the screen. Her first feature documentary Shadeism: Digging Deeper (2015) had its World Premiere at the 2015 Zanzibar International Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Recognition. She is a recipient of the 2017 UN Women Yvonne M. Hebert Award, after being nominated through the Association for Women’s Rights in Development. In the spring of 2018, Nayani’s first feature drama film, THIS PLACE, was selected as a recipient of Telefilm Canada’s inaugural Talent to Watch Program. Nayani feels blessed to work at the intersection of arts and advocacy, working collectively to create and share screen work that seeks to say something, and engage audiences both aesthetically and consciously. Above all, she believes in love and magic.

Fawzia Mirza, a writer, director, creator who believes in the power of comedy and art to tackle divisive topics and breakdown stereotypes, was named one of ’10 Filmmakers to Watch’ by Independent Magazine, a White House ‘Champion of Change’ in Asian American Art & Storytelling, a 3Arts Awardee, a ‘Top 10 Creative’ by Indiewire magazine, a 3Arts Djerassi Resident Artist, and ‘100 Ladies We Love’ by GO Magazine. Her award-winning short films have screened at festivals all over the world. Her first feature, Signature Move which she co-wrote, produced and stars in, world premiered at SXSW, screened at over 150 film festivals, won 14 awards (Grand Jury Prize, Best US Narrative Feature, Outfest) and is streaming on Amazon. 

Howie Shia is a Saskatoon-born illustrator, animator, and writer. His work has won several awards including the 2007 Tokyo Anime Fair Grand Prix for Flutter, and a CSA nomination for his 2015 short, BAM. Along with creating, writing and directing for Disney, Freemantle and Teletoon, Howie enjoys a fruitful ongoing relationship with NFB Canada. He also co-founded with his brothers the music, film, and design studio PPF House. Nobody knows why. Howie is currently working on 2 children’s books, 2 graphic novels, and developing a digital series set in the futuristic world of his short film, Marco’s Oriental Noodles. His latest NFB piece, 4 North A, written and co-directed by Jordan Canning (Schitt’s Creek, Baroness Von Sketch) will be released in the new year.

Writer-critic Elaine Chang holds MA and PhD degrees in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, and accreditations in Screenwriting from the Canadian Film Centre and in Digital Storytelling from ReVision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice. Her publications include Reel Asian: Asia Canada on Screen (Coach House Press), De-Centre: On Artist-run Culture (YYZ Press), articles and essays on Asian North American and minoritized literature and culture, and poetry and creative writings. Her artistic work has received awards from the Rocaberti Writers Foundation, the Nantucket Film Festival, Canada and Ontario Art Councils. She teaches at the University of Guelph.

Jeanette Kong is a documentary filmmaker based in Toronto. Born in Jamaica, she makes films that explore the intersection of culture and identity between Hakkas and Afro-Jamaicans. An award-winning director, she produced and directed The Chiney Shop, Half: The Story of a Chinese-Jamaican Son and Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China. Her films are featured at many international festivals. A former TVO producer and director, she has an MA in Media Production and a Bachelor of Journalism. Currently, she’s in production on A Brief Record of My Father’s Time at Sea, a film about a memoir her father wrote on his journey from China to Jamaica in 1949.

Michael Fukushima is studio head and executive producer of the National Film Board of Canada’s world-renowned English Animation Studio. After freelancing following college, Fukushima joined the Animation Studio in 1990 as a filmmaker, then became a studio producer, and is now head of the fabled studio, with over 200 films (and some nice awards and nominations) under his belt. These days he produces one or two films per year, by veteran creators like Torill Kove and Alison Snowden and David Fine, and otherwise offers up pearls of wisdom and wise-cracking bon mots.

Midi Onodera is a recipient of the 2018 Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts. She is a moving image artist who has been making work for 35+ years. She has produced over 25 independent shorts ranging from film to digital video to “low end” toy camera formats. In addition to this she created a theatrical feature film, Skin Deep and 500+ online videos. Since 2006 she has produced an annual online video project. She currently teaches video at UTSC in the Department of Arts, Culture & Media.

Lulu Wei is a Toronto-based director and cinematographer. She holds an MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University. Her work explores themes of urbanization, cultural identity and queerness. Her short films and installations have been screened and exhibited at various festivals. She has worked as a cinematographer and camera operator on numerous projects, most recently on the John Greyson feature Last Car.
Outside of film, she has shot and directed commercials for brands such as Air Canada, Mazda, and Converse. She is working on her first feature about the redevelopment of the Honest Ed’s block, funded by Telefilm Talent to Watch, the Hot Docs CrossCurrents fund and the Toronto Arts Council.