Cohort
KARINE NTIHINYUKA
Karine Ntihinyuka is a production manager in the world of 3D animation, working for several years with major studios such as Netflix, Warner Brothers and Paramount. She now wishes to anchor herself in the Quebec ecosystem to contribute to quality local animation projects and enhance the presence of the Afro-descendant community in this very subcontracting-oriented industry.
PROJECT: Les Strophe – Animated series
Les Strophe is a satirical 2D sci-fi series set in an absurd future where the concepts of globalization, climate change and technological evolution are pushed to the limit, and humans, except for the Strophe, are seemingly desensitized. Each episode highlights an incredible-looking invention, which often ends in societal tragedy at the slightest bug.
HIND BENCHEKROUN
Hind Benchekroun is a director and producer from Morocco who has been working in the documentary field since 2000. She gained her professional experience in Quebec with Les Films de l’Isle, the National Film Board of Canada and Productions Multi-Monde, with whom she has collaborated on numerous films. At a turning point in her career, she is now starting production on her first feature-length fiction film, directed by Sami Mermer.
PROJECT: Bisko – Feature film
After producing, writing and directing the documentary Xalko with Sami Mermer, the idea of producing a feature film in this geographical and cultural space came almost naturally. Bisko recounts the adventures of a wily, rebellious young boy named Bisko, head of the family despite his age, in a Kurdish village in Turkey. The production of this film is a response to a desire to “perpetuate” this village through film, but also to a more urgent and personal need: to safeguard its “memory”. This memory will be passed on to the village’s descendants, most of whom are in exile around the world.
LINA MARIA TANGARIFE
Lina Maria Tangarife is a Colombian-born documentary filmmaker, migrant and feminist. With a degree in feminist, gender and sexuality studies from the Université de Montréal, her academic background is at the heart of her artistic and political approach. Her aim is to develop a production structure rooted in a feminist, decolonial and collaborative approach. Her ambition is to bring Latin American struggles into dialogue with those experienced here in Quebec.
PROJECT: Pétale de rose – Feature documentary
Pétale de rose is an intimate, feminist and decolonial film, in which the director turns the camera on herself to name patriarchal violence. A film that opens the conversation on a taboo subject that haunts us so:
How can we love our father, our hero, when we reject and detest this same man as our mother’s husband? How can we recognize and denounce violence, even when it comes from the man we love: father, brother, uncle, grandfather, spouse, friend?
A film about transmission and reparation, so that tomorrow’s new generations know how to name violence – and choose a different legacy. Pétale de rose is a film that seeks recognition, reparation, non-repetition… and perhaps, reconciliation.
KARLA MEZA
Karla Meza is a Canadian-Mexican filmmaker based in Montreal. She began scripting, directing and producing documentary films in 2019, in parallel with her career as a journalist. A 2022 graduate of L’inis’ Documentaire profil réalisation program, she founded her production company Meztli Productions, hoping to consolidate her place in the audiovisual industry as a creator of engaging works that explore identity, exile and the issues of forced migration, and reflect her worldview as a woman, mother and immigrant to Canada.
PROJECT: Mamacita – Short fiction series
A single mother from the suburbs tries to make a new life for herself in Montreal after her only son leaves the family nest, but finding herself caught between her own taboos, the gaze of those around her and her desire to find love again, she realizes that she must deconstruct all codes and learn to let go in order to tame her own flight.
ZAINAB RABBAA
Zainab Rabbaa, also known as Zairab, is a Moroccan filmmaker based in Montreal. A painter and film editor, she holds a master’s degree in documentary film and is currently pursuing a doctorate in cinematographic image. As a filmmaker and editor, Zairab has accumulated valuable experience through various personal and professional projects working with production companies in Morocco and Canada.
PROJECT: Rien n’efface – Feature documentary
In the summer of 2022, an unexpected accident disrupts the daily life of a family: the grandmother, who has been suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s for several years, no longer feels the pain caused by the accident, no sensation, no reflexes, as if the body itself had shut down. This moment marks an awakening: the disease erases not only memory, but also sensations, speech, hunger and even the link to reality. Rien n’efface is a poetic and psychological plunge into this inner erasure. The director, the patient’s granddaughter, seeks to understand in depth what illness does to human beings: how it weakens identity and alters perception of the body. Through a hybrid of documentary and animation inspired by the director’s own paintings, the film explores what happens to a person when he or she no longer feels anything. Because even if Alzheimer’s erases almost everything, nothing can erase the family ties that continue to bind us together.
RIAD HAMIDI
Riad Hamidi is a Montreal-based Algerian filmmaker, cinematographer and screenwriter with over a decade of experience in film production. Alongside his technical work, he has steadily built his voice as a filmmaker and screenwriter. After completing the NAWAL Association’s Volume program and the Coalition Média’s M-É-D-I-A- | Pôle entrepreneuriat – HEC Montréal training program, he hopes to bring his career as an emerging producer to fruition, bringing to life personal and culturally-rooted stories.
PROJECT: Ya Rayah – Short fiction film
On his first day as an Uber driver in Montreal, soft-spoken Algerian immigrant Amine navigates an unfamiliar city, both geographically and emotionally. In today’s polarized social environment, Ya Rayah offers a subtle, unsensational perspective on cultural differences, systemic racism and immigrant adaptation in Quebec.
MORE INFORMATION
For any questions or additional information, please contact prisme@mainfilm.qc.ca