Narrative Features
PRESIDENT: Gavin Seal
Gavin Seal is a bilingual Indian-Québécois Writers Guild of Canada prize-winning filmmaker on a mission to dissolve otherness through the universal language of cinema. His films have screened internationally at festivals including Fantasia, Hot Docs, Reelworld, and Just for Laughs.
JURY MEMBERS:
Marie-Hélène Cousineau
“I’m a filmmaker and videographer with a long history of working alongside Inuit women. In 1991, I co-founded the production house “Arnait Video,” and since then, our films, including the award-winning “SOL” and others like “Before Tomorrow” and “Uvanga,” have been showcased at international festivals, galleries, and museums. My background is in art history, and I’ve explored various forms of art, but my time in the Arctic truly shaped my focus on creating socially responsible work. Collaborating with Indigenous communities has deeply influenced my creative process and strengthened my commitment to addressing social and political issues through my art.”
Bogdan Anifrani-Fedach
Bogdan Anifrani-Fedach is an award-winning animation director and animator of Togolese and Ukrainian descent based in Montreal. He has been working in the field of cinema for the past six years, directing short films that were screened in multiple festivals, such as; Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinema and the Los Angeles Animation Festival, where he was awarded a prize for the experimental nature of his short film *By Winds and Tides*, produced in the Alambic program with the National Film Board of Canada. Currently, he is developing another short film titled *To Our Future Ancestors* with the NFB and is independently releasing soon another short film titled *NETHER*.
Feature Documentaries
PRESIDENTE: Phyllis Gooden
InPhyllis is a talented film, television, and theatre actor. During her career, she has successfully incarnated a wide range of characters, ranging in both age and temperament, and her performances have been destined for both Canadian as well as American audiences. She began her career on stage, playing lead roles with theatre companies such as Montreal’s Centaur Theatre as well as Black Theatre Workshop. She later went on to work in film and television in both English and French. Some of her more recent English credits include the new “Home Alone” reboot, an episodic lead in the American television series “Broken Trust”, “The Bold Type” and 19-2. She has also appeared in the French productions, “Le coeur de madame Sabali”, “M’entends-tu?”, “District 31” and “Unité 9”. In addition to acting, Phyllis is also an accomplished singer/songwriter whose music has aired on CBC radio and whose recordings can be heard on iTunes, Apple Music, and Spotify. Beyond her artistic pursuits, Phyllis is also involved in advocacy with ACTRA (The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) National and ACTRA Montreal. She is the producer of the short, “From Set to Reality”, an advocacy piece aimed at promoting the casting of culturally diverse actors in film and television. In January of 2020, Phyllis was re-elected to the position of Ombudsperson for ACTRA Montreal.
JURY MEMBERS:
Jean-Claude-Bustros
Starting out as a self-taught photographer, Jean-Claude Bustros adopts a documentary approach but soon shifts to a more formal style in which light, shade and architectural volumes are his main focus. He exhibits his work in Montréal and abroad and becomes part of the collective that launches Dazibao Gallery.
His passion from childhood however is cinema, so he studies film production and quickly sets his focus to the then burgeoning experimental film genre. After his studies, he joins the recently formed independent collective “Main Film” where he will occupy various roles including those of Vice president and president. He also serves as president on the board of directors of the Independent Media Arts Alliance, an organization representing more than 50 Film, video, new media organizations from all parts of Canada.
Some of his films, such as “LA QUEUE TIGRÉE D’UN CHAT, ZÉRO GRAVITÉ and RIVIÈRE 0 make their mark locally and internationally. They are screened in hundreds of venues and have been exhibited in major retrospectives such as the landmark “The Cinemas of Canada” at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and “Cinéma Recyclé” at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris. The Film magazine: 24 images names his film LA QUEUE TIGRÉE D’UN CHAT, one of the 200 must see films of Québec cinema.
As a film professor and mentor at the Mel Hoppenheim school of Cinema he is one of the first recipients of the distinguished teaching award presented by his faculty. As a researcher he has been exploring expanded and computation-based approaches to cinema.
Paul Rothe
“Paul Rothe, a graduate of Sciences Po Toulouse, wrote a Master’s thesis titled ‘Living in the Ville Nouvelle in Éric Rohmer’s “Full Moon in Paris” and “Boyfriends and Girlfriends”.’ He has worked in France as a script reader and contributed to programming for various festivals and the mk2 Curiosity platform. In 2023, he joined the International Festival of Films on Art, where he integrated the selection committee, organized the festival’s professional days, and took charge of film selection for the ARTS.FILM platform.”
Short & Mid-Length
PRESIDENT: Josa-Maule -Casting Director, Acting-Coach-Director, producer
Born and raised in Montreal, Josa’s true passion has always been to be involved in the entertainment industry. Following her dream at age twenty-five, she founded MSOPA…, thirty-two years later MSOPA is Montreal’s leading acting school and a respected force in Montreal’s growing acting community. Over thousands of students have participated in their programs.
Her continuing dedication to the arts, her students and emerging filmmakers has earned Josa respect and recognition in the acting industry at large.
Success is waking up with joy every morning, doing what you love.
JURY MEMBERS:
Elie Michaud-Alexis
Élie holds a bachelor’s degree in Cultural and Media Production Strategies from UQAM University and is passionate about the arts, culture, and media. Before joining Bell Fund as Administrative Coordinator and Project Analyst, then Business Analyst, she was contributing editor at UQAM’s cultural magazine where she covered a variety of events and worked as programming coordinator at Montreal’s Fashion Week. Élie also interned at the production company Urbania under the media exploration program LAB URBANIA.
Sandra Mathieu
After studying television broadcasting and cinematic screenwriting, Sandra Mathieu wrote, directed and financed many short films. In 2018, she created ‘’Reine’’ a webseries which addresses issues faced by black women. In 2019 she becomes a Netflix grant recipient to study screenwriting at l’INIS. While at l’INIS, she wrote a webseries called Bonne figure and a documentary called Fissure which were both well received in festivals. In 2022, her short film Chance Encounter won “Best International Film ” at the Charlotte Black Film Festival. With a desire to explore themes such as identity, races, intergenerational gap all the while offering a different perspective on storytelling, she is currently developing different projects which include 2 feature-length documentaries.