Mentors 2023 Edition
MARIA GRACIA TURGEON
Mentee: Yasmine Rym Amor
Two-time Oscar-nominated Canadian producer Maria Gracia Turgeon co-founded Midi La Nuit with Annick Blanc. She produced, among others, the successful short films PRE-DRINK by Marc-Antoine Lemire (Best Canadian Short TIFF 2017), Fauve by Jérémy Comte (Oscar-nominated, Special Jury Award Sundance 2018, Telluride), The Colour of your Lips by Annick Blanc (Prix Écran Canadien) and Brotherhood by Meryam Joobeur (Oscar-nominated, Best Canadian Short TIFF 2018, Sundance). She is currently working on several feature films, including Motherhood by Meryam Joobeur (NHKH award Sundance screenwriter lab), Donde Comenza el Rio by Juan Andres Arango (l’Atelier Cannes) and Jour de chasse by Annick Blanc.
ROCÍO B. FUENTES
Mentee: Nadine Jean
Trained at EICTV and L’inis, producer Rocío B. Fuentes worked in the Caribbean before settling in Montreal, where she joined the production company Les Films Outsiders and co-founded Les films Cosmos. A Eurodoc graduate with valuable international experience, she has produced several short and feature-length documentaries and collaborated with other companies as production manager. Her films and projects, both fiction and documentary, have been presented at international festivals and markets such as the Trinidad & Tobago International Film Festival, Festival Regard, Festival du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, TIFF Filmmaker Lab, CPH:Dox Forum and HotDocs Forum, among others.
AONAN YANG
Mentee: Mahmoud Samir Essa
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 NAMES 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 recently served as Executive Producer for the award-winning film Geographies of Solitude by Jacquelyn Mills, winner of 3 awards at Berlinale Forum 2022. Aonan is an active guest speaker at film schools and often serves as jury member at festivals and funds. He is also a co-founder of CineGround Media, a unique camera and post production hub in Montreal catering to local film productions and abroad.
KATHERINE JERKOVIC
Mentee: Diana Roldán
Born in Canada to a Uruguayan mother and a Croatian-Argentinean father, Katherine Jerkovic grew up in Belgium and Uruguay. At the age of 18, she settled in Montréal and pursued film studies at Concordia University (B.F.A. and Master’s). Since then, she has made several experimental and fiction shorts, as well as a video installation, before moving on to feature films. Her short films have been screened in numerous contexts, such as the Festival international du film sur l’art de Montréal (FIFA), the Images Media Arts Festival in Toronto, les Instants vidéo de Marseille, the Anthology Film Archive in New York, les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, among others, and were the subject of a retrospective by the Ministry of Culture in Montevideo, Uruguay. Her debut feature film, entitled Roads in February, was released in 2018. It won the Best Canadian First Feature Award at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the “One to Watch” Award from the Vancouver Film Critics Circle; and was included in the TIFF Canadian Top Ten. Roads in February was theatrically released in Montreal, Toronto and Montevideo. Her second feature film, Coyote, had its world premiere at the 2022 TIFF and went on to win two awards at the Whistler Film Festival (WFF): Best Canadian Feature Film and Best Performance for lead actorJorge Martinez Colorado. Coyote is currently pursuing its festival run and is scheduled to be released in theaters in Canada at the end of March 2023. In parallel to her artistic work, she has been a producer and production manager on her colleagues’ projects. She’s also involved in several organizations and artist-run centers, is a founding member of an independent film distributor, and regularly sits on peer review committees for various institutions. It is better to avoid asking her where she comes from; the answer would be very long and a little confusing. Cinema is her homeland.
ZITA LAWSON
Mentee: Nitsé Mathelier
Zita Lawson has been working in audiovisual production for over 20 years, during which she acquired solid experience in planning, production management, content development, human resources management and project administration.
She has overseen the production of several comedy specials, talk shows, sketch comedies, documentaries, youth and variety series.
Previously with Just for Laughs TV, the National Film Board and ComediHa!, Zita is now head of production and associate at Encore Télévision.
ELIAS DJEMIL
Mentee: Justice Rutikara
Elias Djemil is a director, designer, photographer and documentary filmmaker of multiple identities. A polyglot of Russian-Algerian origin, his versatility and adaptability are reflected in an international body of award-winning work. Whether in the context of an experimental short dance film about a ballet dancer during the Holocaust (Franciszka) or a documentary about contemporary Algerian music (Au rythme du temps), he loves to explore, paint and pay tribute to human creativity in all its facets.
MORE INFORMATION
For any questions or additional information, please contact prisme@mainfilm.qc.ca