Mentors
PRODUCTION MENTORING
AONAN YANG
Mentee : Sara Ben-Saud
Aonan is a co-founder of film production company GreenGround, focuses on producing films that are boundary pushing with high artistic merits, as well, of filmmakers who are visible minorities and from under represented film communities. His latest production includes two poignant works of Denis Côté – Hygiène Sociale (Best Director at Berlinale 2021 in the Encounters section) and Wilcox (Locarno, 2019); The Name of Flowers by Bahman Tavoosi (Jury Prize at Tallinn Black Night IFF 2019 and Best Feature at Venice Film Week 2020); documentaries Primas by Laura Bari, Taming the Horse by Tao Gu, and In the Waves by Jacqueline Mills (winning awards at True/False, Mar del Plata, RIDM, DOXA, VIFF and Xining First, China). He is Canadian producer in spotlights at Cannes 2019 and alumni of Trans-Atlantic Partners 2019. He is also a co-founder of CineGround Media, a unique camera and post production hub in Montreal.
HANY OUICHOU
Mentee : Mohammed Marouazi
After studying philosophy and cinema, Hany Ouichou co-founded the company Art & Essai in 2012 with Mathieu Denis. There he produced more than 20 short films and 5 feature films including Mutants (Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF), Je finirai en prison (selected at Sundance, Clermont-Ferrand and Tempere festivals among others), Prank (selected at the Venice and Toronto festivals), Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n’ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (selected at the Berlinale, Karlovy Vary, and elected Best Canadian Film at TIFF) and Les Barbares de la Malbaie. In 2016, he was recognized as Best Emerging Canadian Producer at the Toronto Film Festival for his “boldness and unique artistic vision.” Today, he holds the roles of artistic director and producer at the Coop Vidéo de Montréal.
MARIE KA
Mentee : Rimte Rocher
After eight years as the driving force of a Senegalese production company whose works have been showcased throughout the world (FIFF de Namur, Rotterdam IFFR, Clermont-Ferrand, Sydney Film Festival) and on television, Marie Ka moved to Vancouver in 2013. In 2015 she directs a short documentary produced by the NFB and attends L’inis the following year. Marie line produces several short documentaries afterwards. In 2020, she moves her Vancouver production company to join forces with Mylène Augustin and create Inaru Films, a Montreal production company that champions under-represented creators. At the same time, Marie’s also involved in various initiatives aimed at increasing representation on Canadian screens.
MILA AUNG-THWIN
Mentee : Victoria Catherine Chan
Mila Aung-Thwin is co-founder of Montreal’s EyeSteelFilm. Productions include Last Train Home (winner of 2 Emmy Awards); Up the Yangtze (Golden Horse Award winner); Rip: A Remix Manifesto (IDFA audience choice prize winner); and I Am the Blues (CSA winner). Most recently, he directed Let There Be Light (Big Sky Fest’s Artistic Vision winner) and co-edited Softie (Sundance Festival award for editing). He frequently mentors upcoming filmmakers – recent workshops include Guangzhou, China; Durban, South Africa; and Yangon, Myanmar.
MIYRAM CHARLES
Mentee : José A. Guayasamin & Asmâa Hadji
Miryam Charles is a director, producer and director of photography living in Montreal. She has produced and photographed several short fiction films as well as feature films . She is also the director of several short films which have been presented in various festivals in Quebec and internationally. She is currently working on her first feature-length documentary Cette maison (Talents en vue, SODEC), on short fiction film Au crépuscule (SODEC créateurs émergents), a fantastic series X (Banff/Netflix Diversity of Voices + Trio Orange) as well as a feature-length fiction film Le marabout (La forge Québec cinéma/Netflix + Voyelles Films).
RICHARD JEAN-BAPTISTE
Mentee : Juana Rubio & Kimberley Ann Surin
After a diverse career including directing and producing documentaries, in 2008 Richard became a partner at Sid Lee; one of the biggest advertising agencies in Canada. Within these last 15 years, Richard founded and successfully led one of Sid Lee’s biggest child company; Jimmy Lee. Richard has produced more than fifty scripted and non-scripted projects including; The LibTv content channel, The Rams, The Chronicles of an Unworthy Mother, The Interns, Make Me a Tale, Éloize, Circus Story, Guantanamera Boxe and Takedown, The DNA of GSP. His productions have been seen in theaters across Canada as well as on CBC, Radio-Canada, TVA, Télé-Québec, TV5, HBO Canada and several festivals. Richard has several nominations and awards to his credit including Numix, Gémeaux, Cyber Lions of Cannes, Boomerang, Digital Marketing Awards and FWA. In 2021 Richard decided to leave the world of advertising to fully dedicate himself to his passions, television and cinema. The scarcity of diversity among experienced producers in Quebec and Canada is no stranger to Richard’s career decision. Richard brings his extensive and unique experience along a different diversity perspective on content produced in Canada.
ZITA LAWSON
Mentee : Nily Louis
Zita has been working in the production field for over 18 years. As a line producer and producer, she has overseen the production of several comedy specials, gala events, hidden camera shows, documentaries and fiction and variety series. In addition to the planning, development and production of audiovisual series, she has often been called upon to work on various mandates ranging from strategic planning to the production of large-scale events. Her experiences have allowed her to develop a solid expertise in production planning and management, content development, human resources management and project administration.
SCREENWRITING MENTORING
KADIDJA HAÏDARA
Mentee : Maeva Montemiglio & Malcolm Odd
Kadidja Haïdara is the author of the award-winning series Le Chalet, the most popular show of the last ten years on the VRAK channel, for which she received the 2015 Gémeaux Award for Best Script: Youth. Since her studies at INIS in the 2010 Author profile of the TV program, Kadidja Haïdara has been busy writing for television and the Web. In 2011, she received the Tout.tv writing grant and then went on to write the series Les Béliers (2013), for which she won several awards and nominations (Gémeaux, Numix, Banff World Media Festival). In addition to the series she is developing, she is currently involved in writing the comedy Décousues alongside Marie-Soleil Dion and Tammy Verge; the project is a 2020 winner of the Netflix ÉNH Grant.
MATTHEW RANKIN
Mentee : Farhad Pakdel
Matthew Rankin studied history at McGill University and Laval University, and then studied film in Winnipeg. He has worked as an essayist, creative consultant, cartoonist, propagandist, Esperantist, and – during his clean-cut youth years – as an animator for the CBC. This one-man band filmmaker has made nine independent shorts, two medium-length films on Winnipeg popular culture, a web series and countless filmic experiments. His work is marked by the mixing of genres, the use of documentary and historical elements, and a distinctive, lyrical aesthetic. Matthew’s short films include Tabula rasa, in 2012, (Prix de l’Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma); Mynarski chute mortelle in 2014 (Best Canadian Film Award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and the Off-Limits Award at the Annecy International Animation Festival), opened the 43rd edition of the Festival du nouveau cinéma. His short film Tesla: World Light (2017) was selected for Critics’ Week in Cannes. His first feature film, The Twentieth Century, is the winner of Best Canadian First Film at TIFF 2020.
SUSANNE SERRES
Mentee : Karelee Rodnil
Writer/director Susanne Serres aspires to create powerful and emotional visual art pieces, photos, music videos and short / feature films. My Layers is Susanne’s fifth short film as a director. It was programmed as part of the 2021 Slamdance International Film Festival. Her debut as a director was the award-winning short film Zaya which was awarded many awards around the world. In 2019, Susanne spent the summer shadowing writer/director Paul Weitz as his personal assistant on his feature film, Fatherhood. In 2020, she was honored to direct an episode segment of Sesame Street, that will be airing in Spring 2021 on HBO and PBS.
MORE INFORMATION
For any questions or additional information, please contact prisme@mainfilm.qc.ca