Location: Toronto

Alessandro passed his free time watching movies to break out from the Italian provincial, small- minded reality he was growing in. His stories brood in the darkness, bursting from stygian corners of society, twisting around his flawed characters to create provoking experiences and images that remain with the audience long after the last scene. His horror feature “METASTASIS” is currently being developed by Travis Stevens from Snowfort Pictures in LA, California.

Anaïsa Visser

Location: Vancouver

Anaïsa is a biracial (Dutch and Pakistani) filmmaker. She grew up all over the world, namely in Mozambique, the United States, then France, before moving to Vancouver to pursue an undergraduate degree at Emily Carr University. She graduated in 2013 with a BFA in Film, Video and Integrated Media. She then completed her Masters Degree in Film Production and Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia in 2020. Anaïsa is the founder of "Women & Gender Diverse Filmmakers of BC", which unites women, genderqueer, trans and non-binary folk working in film. She has won numerous awards, including the 2017 Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist in Film & New Media, and the 2018 Women in Film and Television Spotlight Award for Newcomer.

Location: Winnipeg

After a split second decision he couldn’t take back, Andrew left Winnipeg and jumped headfirst into a life of screenwriting in Toronto.  Unable to leave his prairie upbringing behind, he found himself immersing it into his writing, making his voice distinctly… flat. Wait, no! Come on Andrew, you’re not the prairies, the prairies are you…. Making his voice distinctly… unique(much better)!  Spanning areas such as Second City, CFC, TIFF, U.S. and Canadian networks, he’s been able to spread his seed of the written word all the while teaching screenwriting at several colleges to make sure future writers are as friendly, odd and eccentric as he is.      

Aren X. Tulchinsky

Location: Vancouver

​Aren is a born story teller. An out and proud transman and a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, he is a screenwriter, television writer, novelist and video editor. In grade school, he was the kid writing stories in class when he was supposed to be solving math problems. Aren has six feature screenplays in development, including I Shot the Sheriff, to be directed by acclaimed director, Clement Virgo. Aren was on the story team of The Guard (Global), and Robson Arms (CTV). His short film Ms Thing has screened in over 50 film festivals internationally and won Audience Choice Award at QueerFruits Australia. He is the author of the award-winning novel, The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky.

Location: Toronto

Atefeh Khademolreza is an award-winning writer and director born in Iran and living in Toronto, Canada with over fifteen years of experience making films internationally. She studied under the late maestro, Abbas Kiarostami before immigrating to Canada. Atefeh’s films have been screened at prestigious film festivals around the world, including the Berlin International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, and the Vienna International Film Festival. Atefeh is the 2021-2022 Filmmaker-in-Residence at the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF’21) Micki Moore Residency. She is also an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus (2006), the Asian Film Academy (2008), the Serbia Interaction Film Camp (2006, 2016), and Reelworld E20 (2019). She also served as a jury member on multiple festivals including the Oscar-qualifying Tehran International Short Film Festival and TIFF’22’s Micki Moore Residency selection committee. Atefeh is driven to tell stories about women, immigration, and identity. Her work explores the experiences of disorientation and reorientation, both culturally and socially.  Atefeh holds a Master’s Degree in Film Production from York University (2019)  and she is a member of the Writers Guild of Canada and a member of the Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA). 

Chantal Forde

Location: Toronto

Chantal Forde is a writer, stage director, and educator who is as passionate about creating multi-faceted and flawed characters, as she is about breathing life into bright and sweet family shows. She has never been able to sit still for very long and loves to explore every corner of her imagination. Her writing style spans from her interactive, digital, dystopian drama “The Complex”, to her upbeat Trini TYA musical “Boy Boy and the Magic Drum”. The one thing that never seems to change with Chantal is how often she starts a sentence with “Imagine if…”

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Chrystelle Maechler

Location: Toronto

Chrystelle is a TV director, producer, screenwriter, radio columnist, narrator, and jazz vocalist. Her documentary work has led her to explore a wide range of issues, for networks such as Radio-Canada/CBC, TV5 Unis, TFO, and Bell. She created and directed documentary series A new place called home, À la bonne franquette and Urban Resilience Toronto. Maechler has created content in French, English, and German.

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Gordon Loverin 

Location: Tlingit and Tahltan Nations, BC

An Indigenous media content creator from Tlingit and Tahltan Nations of Northwestern BC with almost 4 decades in the industry. Gordon is a successful documentary producer/director and has created several projects over the years.  In 2020 he was chosen by Netflix to pitch his fictional series creation KANATA. In 2018 he placed in the top 25 for the Diversity of Voices Initiative at the Banff World Media Festival. In 2018, he received his narrative film Director Certification from Langara College's Film Arts program. In 2016, he co-wrote a short film script that placed in the top 10 at the Cannes Screenplay Contest. He's currently writing an Indigenous feature length screenplay which has an executive producer attached, and two TV series pilots. As an Indigenous media creator, he gravitates to telling stories that hold up the beauty and cultures of Indigenous peoples. "Our film arts should present our uniqueness to the world and not just focus on the effects of colonization. We are so much more than that."

Location: Toronto

Graham Kent is a Toronto-based writer, creator, and (checks vitals) human being. Having branched from acting into writing, his on-screen work spans television, commercials, short and feature films, development on scripted projects, and VOD content for Bell Media. An alumnus of Humber College’s school of Comedy Writing and Performance, Graham sometimes makes with the ha-ha, focusing mainly on comedies and dramas. Graham was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at the age of 8, which taught him to look beneath the surface differences that divide us and seek the similarities that make us all human beings; a theme common within his original works. He believes we have more in common than in contrast, that we do better in cooperation than competition, and he swears for normal reasons. Graham is a proud member of both the WGC and IATSE 411.

Location: Toronto

​Hope is a Toronto-based writer who works in theatre, film and television. As a genre-writer, she turns her queer eye to crime, horror, camp and comedy. Recent career standouts include the publication of her crime story “Stage Diary, 1953” (Cold Canadian Crime: Crime Writers of Canada’s 2022 Anthology) and two seasons writing on the CBC hit comedy series, Baroness Von Sketch Show. 

Kristin Taylor

Location: Arlington, Texas

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Kristin is a screenwriter born and raised in DFW, Texas and loves to incorporate the southern setting in her stories. Even though Kristin is from "Dallas Cowboys Nation" as she calls it, she is a Greenbay Packers fan. She is also a self-published author of a young adult series and a new adult novella. When Kristin isn't writing she loves to read her favorite YA novels, go bowling, shoot hoops, go to Barnes and Nobles with her husband and daughter and hang out with friends and family. 

Drama

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Lindsay Lee

Location: Toronto

Lindsay is a writer, producer, and performer who specializes in practical filmmaking with puppets and model miniatures. Her recent credits Miikshi (TVOkids/Shaftesbury Kids) and Power Lines (in development with CBC Kids) feature quirky protagonists who don't always say the right things at the right times. A book-loving Chinese-Jamaican girl from Toronto, she loves to amplify the voices of misfit characters and give them a place to belong on screen.

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Lucy Belgum

Location: Toronto

Lucy Belgum is a Transgender writer and director in Toronto. They have a fond love of miniatures, escapism and nature. Her stories are infused with her experiences growing up as a military brat who moved around a lot, rarely settling into one place, while also not being at home in their own body regardless of where they were swept off to.   She hopes to tell as many stories as she can that feature wonderful queer and trans characters while whisking them off into adventures across our world and many more.  When not telling stories, Lucy is a sculptor and thanks to the support of OAC has built several miniature based sculptures over the last few years. It’s either that, cuddling their cats (Riffraff and Luna)

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Location: Calgary

Melanee has been in front of and behind the camera since she was a kid. Her dramatic comedy short, Race Anonymous, about a recovering race-aholic who meets his brownskinned higher power, has won awards as has her gender bending solo stage show The ‘Hoodwink.  Whether its dystopian drama or absurdist satire, she uses her diverse, off-kilter perspective for some satisfyingly out-of-the-box storytelling. 

Nikki Saltz  (WGC)

Location: Toronto

Nikki Saltz is a South African-born screenwriter and story editor based in Toronto, Canada. She is the founder of script consulting boutique, House of Stories, and an alumnus of the Writers’ Lab at the prestigious Canadian Film Centre. Nikki holds an MFA in screenwriting and has taught at Toronto Film School and York University. She has served as a script consultant for the TIFF Writers’ Studio, a juror for the TIFF- CBC Screenwriter’s Award, and has lectured on Story and screenwriting across Canada. Nikki is currently in development on a one-hour comedy with director Lindsay MacKay (Ghost BFF, The Swearing Jar). When she's not writing, Nikki volunteers in dog rescue (she's fostered 14 dogs to date), and trains in boxing, Krav Maga and Brazillian Jiu Jitsu.

Rennata Lopez

Location: Toronto

Rennata is the creative force behind Lopii Productions. Her passion is creating content and telling stories. She wears many hats as director, showrunner, story editor, writer and casting director. Rennata loves working within the unscripted world (especially with children)  as she finds that the best kind of magic happens when it isn’t written down.

Prior to co-founding Lopii Productions with her sister Georgina in 2018, Rennata has worked on many productions  including the Emmy award-winning Giver (TVOkids), It’s My Party (TVOkids), What’s Inside? (TVOkids), Scare-Tactics (MTV), The Zone (YTV), Property Brothers (HGTV) and Pick a Puppy (YTV)..

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Stephanie Herrera  (WGC)

Location: Calgary

Stephen comedic, coming-of-age solo show about being a white guy that the Public Theatre produced, which ended up scoring Steve and writing partner - and wife - Melanee an invite to Quincy Jones’ house in the hills of Brentwood, along with a development deal. Steve likes rom-coms, telling funny stories, sports, cooking and running road races slowly.  

Wahid Ibn Reza  (WGC)