DIRECTORS GUILD OF CANADA - Key Persons
Aisling Chin-Yee is an award-winning writer, director, producer, and editor based in Montreal, Canada, and Los Angeles, California. She recently directed three episodes of the CBC limited series Plan B, starring Patrick J. Adams and Karine Vanasse.
In 2021, Aisling was celebrated as one of DOC NYC and HBO Documentary's 40 Under 40. She was named one of Canada's Rising Film Stars by Now Magazine 2019. New Yorker Magazine hailed Aisling's latest workas "a genre unto itself," and one of the magazine's Best Movies of 2021.
That was the documentary, No Ordinary Man, which she co-directed with Chase Joynt, co-wrote with Amos Mac, and edited. The film is about Billy Tipton, a piano-playing jazzman from the Midwest who, after he died in 1989, was outed to the media that he was transgender. The documentary premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival and named one of TIFF's Top Ten films that year. The film took home the award for Best Canadian Feature Film at the Inside Out LGBTQ Film Festival, and the Nouveaux Regards / New Visions Award at Les Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal (RIDM), Best Portrait Documentary at Cleveland International Film Festival, and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at Translations Film Festival. Aisling also won the prize for Best Documentary Editing by the Directors' Guild of Canada in 2021.
Her feature film directorial debut, The Rest of Us, starring Heather Graham (Boogie Nights, The Hangover), Sophie Nélisse (Yellow Jackets, The Book Thief), and Jodi Balfour (For All Mankind, The Crown) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2019. As a producer for over a decade, Aisling has been lauded for her fresh and unapologetic vision and produced the award-winning feature films, Rhymes for Young Ghouls, The Saver and the acclaimed feature documentary Last Woman Standing amongst other film and tv titles. 2014 marked her year as writer and director with the short film, Sound Asleep which premiered at Lucerne International Film Festival. In 2015, she directed the multi-award winning documentary Synesthesia which won Best Short Documentary at the International Crossroads Film Festival.
Clement Virgo is a CFC graduate and one of Canada's foremost film Directors. His TV directing credits include THE WIRE, BILLIONS, AMERICAN CRIME, EMPIRE, and GREENLEAF, on which he served as Director and executive producer with Oprah Winfrey. GREENLEAF won the NAACP award for best drama series in 2019. In 2015, he directed, co-wrote, and executive produced the miniseries adaptation of THE BOOK OF NEGROES, which debuted to record-breaking numbers on the CBC and BET in the U.S., and was nominated for two U.S. Critics Choice Television Awards and shortlisted for a Peabody Award. Virgo's additional accolades include four 2015 NAACP Image Award Nominations, including a win for Best Screenplay, and a DGC Award for Directing for Television Movie/Miniseries for THE BOOK OF NEGROES. Virgo's feature films have premiered at TIFF, Sundance, and Berlin film festivals. His movies include POOR BOY'S GAME, LIE WITH ME, and LOVE COME DOWN. Virgo's first feature RUDE, made through the CFC Feature Film Project, premiered at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. He's currently prepping his next feature film, BROTHER, and co-showrunning the upcoming Netflix series BLOOM for Michelle and Barack Obama's Higher Ground Productions.
Deborah Chow is a Director and writer, known for Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Mandalorian, American Gods, Better Call Saul, Jessica Jones, Lost in Space, Fear the Walking Dead, Reign, and Mr.Robot.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Kainai First Nation
Helen Shaver has built a lasting legacy, both behind and in front of the camera. She has directed hundreds of hours of television, and has received multiple Emmy and Saturn Award nominations, among other honours.
Jeffrey St. Jules is a Writer/Director whose bold, genre-bending films have played Sundance, TIFF, AFI, Frameline and many other prominent film festivals. His surreal musical, BANG BANG BABY starring Jane Levy was developed through the Cannes Festival Residence. It earned him multiple awards including best first Canadian feature at TIFF and the Canadian Screen Awards. His second feature is a psychological thriller called CINEMA OF SLEEP. It recently bowed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
Jennifer Abbott is a Sundance and Genie award-winning film Director, writer, editor, producer, and sound designer, who specializes in social justice and environmental documentaries.
John Fawcett has created an impressive body of work as a producer, director and writer in feature films and television. He co-created, executive produced and directed multiple episodes of the Emmy-winning and Golden-Globe nominated sci-fi drama, Orphan Black. The series won countless DGC and Canadian Screen Awards, a Hugo award and a Peabody award. Fawcett's feature film Ginger Snaps premiered at TIFF, garnering an instant international cult following and is widely recognized as a benchmark film in its genre. He has since produced two sequels for his successful horror franchise and is developing a television series based on the film with award-winning UK producers, Sid Gentle Films. Other feature directing credits include the acclaimed films The Boys Club and The Dark. Recently, Fawcett produced and directed the first original series for the Warner Bros. DC Universe Titans, and has been a regular director on Amazon's The Man In The High Castle. He also directed the limited series Devil in Ohio for Netflix and is currently an EP and director of Orphan Black Echoes with AMC.
Liz is an active member of the Canadian film community. She is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada - BC Chapter, and serves on the board of directors for Cinema Politica, a non-profit supporting the work of independent, political filmmakers in Canada and beyond. As a longtime member of DOC (Documentary Organization of Canada,) Liz was an elected board member for six years of the Toronto chapter which formed the DOC Institute - the collective voice for Ontario's indie documentary community. Liz is a founding member of the Canadian chapter of Film Fatales, a global community of experienced women and non-binary feature film and television directors dedicated to expanding the landscape of representation in storytelling.
Loretta Todd is a leader in Indigenous media, having directed over 100 projects including award-winning documentaries, such as FORGOTTEN WARRIORS and HANDS OF HISTORY, with the NFB, plus digital media, animation, and television. She is also a producer, who has contributed to the development of the Indigenous media industry, by providing opportunity for Indigenous cast, crew, and creatived. Ms. Todd created, produced, wrote, and directed media projects including children's series (TANSI! NEHIYAWETAN, COYOTE'S CRAZY SMART SCIENCE SHOW), sci-fi (SKYE AND CHANG), and interactive media (FIERCE GIRLS). Ms. Todd's first feature, MONKEY BEACH, based on the iconic Canadian novel by Eden Robinson was screened at TIFF (Industry Selects), opened the VIFF, won numerous awards, including Best Film and Best Director at the American Indian and Red Nation Film Festivals, and was the #1 Canadian film at the box office for 4 weeks. She is also in development with a new animated children's series called NITANIS & SKYLAR. Ms. Todd created the IM4 Media Lab, an Indigenous VR/AR/XR Lab, in collaboration with Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where she is the Creative Director. She is Cree Metis, from St. Paul des Metis, White Fish Lake First Nation, and Turtle Mountain Chippewa in North Dakota.
Marie Clements has ignited her brand of artistry within a variety of mediums including film, TV, radio, and live performance. Her latest project, the feature drama RED SNOW, has won Most Popular Canadian Feature Film at VIFF, Best Canadian Feature Film at the Edmonton International Film Festival, Best Director of a Feature at the 2019 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco, and Best Achievement in Film from the LA Skins Festival. RED SNOW has also recently been nominated for 10 Leo Awards. A 2019 Telefilm Canada Birks Diamond Tribute to Women in Film recipient, Marie was also nominated for a DGC Best Director Award, and has received the WFF Women on Top Award and the WIFTTV Spotlight Impact Award 2018. Her multi-award-winning films have screened at Cannes, TIFF, MOMA, VIFF, Whistler Film Festival, AIFF, and ImagineNATIVE Film Festival. Her play THE UNNATURAL AND ACCIDENTAL WOMEN opened the first national Indigenous theatre at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa last fall, and her opera, MISSING, toured nationally to critical acclaim.
Mina Shum has written and directed five award-winning feature films that have successfully touched international and domestic audiences. Her films have premiered in Sundance, Toronto and Berlin. The New York Times calls her work "wry and winning". As well as her feature films, Shum's work includes art installations, essays, lectures, and short films. Film titles include DOUBLE HAPPINESS, DRIVE, SHE SAID, LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS & PROSPERITY, NINTH FLOOR, and MEDITATION PARK. Shum has also directed episodic television in all lengths for a variety of networks including CTV, CBC, Nickelodeon, Oxygen, W, and MTV/Logo.
Job Titles:
- Great North Artist Management
Shane Belcourt is a four-time CSA-nominated Director, with award-winning narrative and documentary works in both film and TV. He has directed three narrative feature films, TKARONTO (which was showcased in both the TIFF Indigenous Cinema Retrospective and the UCLA Film & Television Archive traveling exhibition, "Through Indian Eyes: Native American Cinema"); RED ROVER (premiered at the Whistler Film Festival and can be found on Amazon Prime); and WARRIOR STRONG, was released in theatres in North America in the Fall of 2023 starring Andrew Dice Clay. In documentary, Shane directed KAHA:WI, which received a CSA Best Director nomination; the CBC one-hour INDICTMENT: THE CRIMES OF SHELLY CHARTIER which won Best Doc at imagineNATIVE (co-directed with Lisa Jackson); the feature documentary BEAUTIFUL SCARS, about internationally acclaimed songwriter Tom Wilson for TVO, which premiered at HotDocs and garnered a CSA nomination for Best Director in 2023; as well as the 3 seasons of the music documentary series, AMPLIFY, which airs on APTN that Shane created and co-showran. Currently, Shane is directing the feature documentary NADAAMAAIS which received Telefilm funding and set for release in 2025; and is a co-creator and co-showrunner (with Tasha Hubbard) of a premium narrative mini-series in development with CBC titled, STONECHILD.
Shannon Walsh is a filmmaker and writer whose award-winning films cover topics ranging from labour rights, to grief and climate change. Shannon's most recent film, The Gig is Up (2021) was hailed by Variety for being "galvanizing and moving" and The Hollywood Reporter called it "a devastating reality check". Her films have been theatrically released and broadcast globally, screening in festivals around the world such as IDFA, Hot Docs, CPH:DOX, Doc NYC and many others, as well as playing art spaces, such as the Venice Biennale and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Currently, Shannon teaches film as an Associate Professor at UBC. She was Guggenheim Fellow in 2020. In 2023, she was awarded the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. Her new feature documentary film, Adrianne & the Castle, will be released in early 2024.
Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor are an established directing team working in Vancouver, British Columbia. Their documentary features and documentary series are crowd-pleasing favourites, featuring larger-than-life characters, twisty-turny plots, and beautiful cinematography. Their first feature SOMEONE LIKE ME (National Film Board of Canada) won top honours at film festivals internationally, including the Audience Choice Award at Hot Docs 2021. Their next feature SATAN WANTS YOU (Telefilm, Canada Media Fund, Documentary Channel) is a documentary thriller/horror currently in post-production for Winter/Spring 2023 festival release. Sean and Steve have directed over 20 projects together and are proud members of the queer community.
Tiffany Hsiung is a Peabody award-winning filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada, listed as one of DOC NYC's 40 under 40, and is a two-time Canadian Screen Award winner; Her film SING ME A LULLABY (2020) won the Oscar qualifying Grand Jury Prize at DOC NYC, the inaugural TIFF ‘Share Her Journey Short Cuts Award', The DGC Best Short Film Award, and is listed as TIFF Canada's Top Ten of 2020. Hsiung's work has played in over 150 film festivals with over 25 awards, released and broadcasted globally.
Tracey Deer is a Mohawk writer, Director, and showrunner whose two decades of experience spans documentary, television, and film. After co-creating, directing, and co-showrunning five seasons of MOHAWK GIRLS, she co-executive produced and wrote for ANNE WITH AN E. Her debut feature BEANS premiered at TIFF 2020 to critical acclaim, garnering Tracey the prestigious TIFF Emerging Talent Award, and title as one of Variety's 10 Screenwriters to Watch.
Yung Chang is the multi-award-winning Director of 5 feature documentaries. WUHAN WUHAN world premiered at Hot Docs '21. His feature script, EGGPLANT, was developed at the 2015 Sundance Institute Screenwriting & Directing Labs. A graduate of the NYC Neighborhood Playhouse's Meisner technique and Concordia's School of Cinema, Chang's films are recognized for being humanistic stories exploring emotionally complex characters through a cinematic lens. Chang is a member of AMPAS, DGC, and WGC.