Name:

Gareth C. Scales

Title:

Editor in Residence

Biography:

Gareth Scales attended Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and graduated in 1999 with a Major in Film and Video. After a few years of working in post-production in Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal he completed the Editor’s Lab in the Alliance Atlantis film resident’s program at the Canadian Film Centre. Since then he has been busy editing many projects including Douglas Coupland’s first feature film script, EVERYTHING’S GONE GREEN, Bruce McDonald’s THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS, which was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Editing, the CityTV series The Murdoch Mysteries and Less Than Kind, and won a Gemini award for his work on the CBC television series The Tournament. He is currently putting the finishing touches on Dilip and Deepa Mehta’s WHAT’S COOKING STELLA? and editing the CTV/CBS drama Flashpoint.

Name:

Greg Klymkiw

Title:

Producer in Residence

Biography:

Greg Klymkiw has devoted his life and career to the development, distribution and production of indigenous, independent Canadian film culture. He is currently the Producer-in-Residence at the Canadian Film Centre where he is firmly committed to the training and development of the next generation of Canada's filmmakers. At the Film Centre since 1998, and focusing primarily on the elements of cinematic storytelling, he has taught and mentored producers, writers, directors and editors in a variety of Film Centre programs including the Film Resident Program, the Feature Film Project, and the Short Dramatic Film Program. In addition to the above, he assists and mentors CFC alumni in a variety of phases with their work after graduating from the CFC including screenplay development, casting, post-production, promotion and career management. Prior to the Film Centre, he wrote and/or produced numerous award winning and critically acclaimed films, marketed the work of the legendary Winnipeg Film Group, wrote on film and popular culture for print, radio and television and, among other achievements, taught numerous courses, workshops and delivered guest lectures on filmmaking in a multitude of venues and institutions worldwide.

Klymkiw graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in English literature and theatre. From 1977 to 1988 he worked as a freelance journalist, repertory cinema programmer and film buyer. From 1988 to 1992, he was Director of Marketing for The Winnipeg Film Group where he created the legend of the "Winnipeg-style" (cited as "Prairie Post-modernism" by critic Geoff Pevere), thus vaulting numerous films and filmmakers onto the national and international stage. During this period, Klymkiw masterminded the cult status of Guy Maddin's TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL.

Klymkiw began producing films in the early 1980's, assisting John Paizs on several short films (including SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND). Since the late 1980's, he has produced over ten features including the work of Guy Maddin (ARCHANGEL, CAREFUL), Alan Zweig (VINYL), Cynthia Roberts (THE LAST SUPPER, BUBBLES GALORE), Bruno Lazaro Pacheco (CITY OF DARK) and Nik Sheehan (SYMPOSIUM). His most recent independent productions include the popular web series by CFC alumna Lynn Kamm entitled I LOVE A LUGER (as executive producer) and UFO DOGGIES a one-hour doc narrated by Thea Gill from “Queer as Folk” and nominee for the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Whistler Film Festival). Klymkiw's productions have received many awards and considerable critical praise. THE LAST SUPPER was named Best Feature Film at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Awards. ARCHANGEL was named Best Experimental Film by the National Society of Film Critics and received in 2008 a print restoration by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada. CAREFUL appeared on numerous international film critics' ten-best lists and was recently selected as the opening night presentation of the Zeitgeist Films retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. CITY OF DARK received the Prize for Cinematic Innovation at the Figuera de la Foz in Portugal. BUBBLES GALORE won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Freakzone International Festival of Trash Cinema in France and was one of the first Canadian feature films to provoke debate of arts funding in the House of Commons when The National Post ran a front page headline that read: “Lesbian Porn Funded By Government.”

Some believe Klymkiw is an actor and he has appeared as Akmatov the Industrialist in Guy Maddin's THE HEART OF THE WORLD, a Ukrainian proletarian in Jeff Solylo's EAST OF EUCLID, a svelte diver and a dog breeder in John Paizs’s SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND and CRIME WAVE respectively.

He is currently writing a book based upon his experience and studies entitled Movies Are Action: The Central Principles of Cinematic Storytelling that details the primary aesthetic and pedagogical approach that he has developed for use at the Canadian Film Centre. He also writes the occasional guest film review for the acclaimed website Daily Film Dose and is co-hosting and co-producing the limited movie review web-series Filmseen.

And yes, he watches movies too. At last count, Klymkiw had seen over 30,000 feature films.

Name:

Janelle Hutchison

Title:

Casting Consultant

Biography:

A writer alumnus of the CFC’s 2004 Film Resident Program, Janelle has toiled in the film and television cultural trenches as a writer, actor, singer, casting associate, and as associate manager of programming for the country’s largest theatre.

As a casting director and associate she’s been involved with feature films, MOWs, episodic series, and pilots and shorts for CBC, CTV, Columbia/Tristar, Paramount, ABC, Miramax, Disney, Lifetime, PAX, VH1, Alliance/Atlantis, Lion’s Gate Entertainment, and for the past 4 years the CFC’s Actor Table Reads, Chatterboxes, Short Dramatic Films and TV Teasers. Casting for independent shorts includes LOVING LORETTA (which she co-wrote with director Andrea Gutsche), Jeremy Boxen’s RINGTONE and Jane Meikle’s NANCY LOVES MISS BROWN.

Produced writing credits include the shorts LOVING LORETTA 2009 Actra Award winner – Best Female Performance), BREAKDOWN and STILL LIFE, and her script, PERFECT DROP, won Best Achievement in Screenwriting at Ryerson. Produced writing for the theatre includes The Family Way, Tonight at 8:30...9 o’clock in Newfoundland and Colas and Colinette (English translation).

Janelle’s long-format project slate currently includes the family film HOT PAINT, a reverse art heist, and WATER’S EDGE , which tackles the difficult subject of Death With Dignity and garnered her recognition from the 2003 Nicholls Fellowship competition (Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences), as well as a Jim Burt Prize nomination at the 2005 Canadian Screenwriting Awards. Both scripts are currently under option. She is currently developing, Clip Joint, a half-hour comedy series set in a beauty salon for dogs.

Janelle’s career as an actor included episodic work for CBC, CTV, Global, TVO, CBS, ABC, and NBC. In a previous life, she starred in more than 1400 performances of the original Canadian production and first National tour of Les Miserables as the inn-keeper’s wife, Mme. Thenardier…… and still has the dent in her forehead from the radio mike to prove it.

Name:

John Paizs

Title:

Director in Residence

Biography:

John Paizs was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Originally his ambition was to be a cartoon animator and while still in high school he created a four-minute Disney-style animated cartoon that in 1978 received a special citation from The British Film Institute.

Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Manitoba in 1980, Paizs decided to switch to live-action filmmaking. Equipped with a secondhand Bolex camera he embarked on a series of ultra low-budget comedies, which would earn him in the mid ‘80s the reputation as Canada’s leading independent filmmaker. He wrote, produced, directed and starred (as The Silent Man, a nod to Buster Keaton) in these six outstandingly imaginative films, both short and feature length. Taken together they remain today one of the most impressive and influential bodies of independent film work produced in Canada.
Of these six films two in particular stand tall: the suburban satire SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND (1981), cited as Canada’s first postmodern film, and the feature-length “writer’s block” comedy CRIME WAVE (1986), hailed as the funniest Canadian movie ever made. Over the years these two films have garnered many accolades besides:
In 1997 the Manitoba Motion Picture Industry Association at its biannual Blizzard Awards ceremony honoured CRIME WAVE with a special award for “Best (Manitoba-produced) Film of the Decade.”

In a poll of Canada’s leading film critics and festival programmers conducted by Take One magazine in 2003 to name the country’s top ten fiction feature film debuts since 1968 (the year of the inception of the CFDC, now Telefilm Canada), CRIME WAVE placed number eight.
In a similar poll conducted by the Toronto International Film Festival Group the following year to name Canada’s top ten films of all time, CRIME WAVE appeared on six of the respondents’ lists while SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND appeared on one.

In 2008 the Canadian-produced television documentary series On Screen!, a series that explores and celebrates the Canadian film industry’s most important cultural milestones, devoted an episode to CRIME WAVE.

Paizs’s independent films have been presented at such prestigious venues as the Lincoln Centre and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the Walker Arts Centre in Minneapolis, the Wexner Centre for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and the Centre George Pompidou and the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, France.

After completing CRIME WAVE Paizs decided to retire his Silent Man character as well as from ultra low-budget filmmaking. A new chapter in his directing career opened in 1990 when he was invited to direct for the hit television series The Kids in the Hall. It was his first professional directing engagement.
Many more were to follow, both in TV and in features. They include helming the 1999 festival hit Top of the Food Chain (a.k.a. Invasion!), starring Campbell Scott and Tom Everett Scott; and the 2005 made-for-TV horror-fantasy MARKER.

A third chapter in Paizs’s directing career opened in 2000 when he was made Director in Residence at the Canadian Film Centre. He remains vigorously engaged there today, mentoring Canada’s brightest filmmaking lights of tomorrow.

Name:

Karen Walton

Title:

Writer in Residence

Biography:

Multiple award-winning screen and television writer Karen Walton is best known for penning the cult horror classic, GINGER SNAPS – which spawned a sequel and a prequel -, the shocking true story/legal drama movie of the week, The Many Trials of One Jane Doe, and three episodes of Showtime's flagship series, Queer As Folk (USA) where she staffed Season Two as Executive Story Editor.

Named one of Variety magazine's Top Ten Writers to Watch in 2000, Karen has since enjoyed numerous and diverse feature film writing contracts for original works and literary adaptations with Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, and Sony Columbia in the US, as well as noteworthy producers and directors in Great Britain and Canada. Her current slate includes cowriter/director Jean-Marc Vallee's saucy Seventies' movie, SHOEBUSINESS, adapting Michael Turner's bestselling novel The Pornographer's Poem for director Jeremiah Chechik, adapting critically-acclaimed author Guy Vanderhaeghe's My Present Age for director John Hazlett, scribbling cowriter/director Brad Peyton's Billy Grimm, and for herself - a bio pic on legendary Canadian poet, Elizabeth Smart currently entitled, Smart.

After a five year hiatus from television staffing-writing series like CTV's The City, and writing made-for TV movies like DOE and HEART: THE MARILYN BELL STORY, then guest-writing episodes for series like CTV's The Eleventh Hour, CBC's What It's Like Being Alone & Straight Up, Karen is about to return to the small screen to co-create and develop a new one-hour cable drama series set in Quebec.

Karen’s trophy collection includes a Writers Guild of Canada Writer's Block Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Canadian Screenwriting Community, a Special Jury Award for Original Screenplay from the Toronto International Film Festival, a Canadian Comedy Award for Pretty Funny Feature Screenplay, a Gemini Award for Best Writing for Movie or Mini-series, a Gemini Nomination for Best Writing in a Youth Drama, and the Banff International Television Festival’s CTV Fellowship Alumni Award. Her work on the contextually innovative GINGER SNAPS has been examined in several documentaries, critical essays and post-secondary theses, and is one of the subjects of the pending publication, The New Horror Handbook, by US journalist Aaron Berman, to be released in the summer of 2009. Karen is also the founder & editor of the online global writers' Facebook group, 'ink canada – Canadian screenwriters & their sketchy friends', a common gathering place for writers and talent of all stripes, infamous for bringing creative people together for the development of collective good will and not a
few good hangovers.

Karen holds a Bachelor of Arts Honors in Drama from the University of Alberta, & is a graduate of the Feature Film Screenwriting Residency programme at the Canadian Film Centre (where she co-wrote Vincenzo Natali’s ELEVATED). Her interest in film and writing began at the Edmonton film/video/animation collective, The Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta, -- where she is a life-time producing member.

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, raised in Dartmouth, Karen was a teenager when she moved to the suburban hamlet of Sherwood Park, just outside of Edmonton, Alberta. In 1994, she relocated to her current home-base in Toronto, and – since expanding her creative interests into Quebec’s filmmaking industry in 2007 - her second home & office, in Montreal’s Plateau district. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America - West, the Writers Guild of Canada, and SARTEC, the Canadian guild covering French-language screen, radio and television writing.

Name:

Luc Montpellier

Title:

Cinematographer in Residence

Biography:

Images created by the award-winning Director of Photography, Luc Montpellier have entertained and engaged feature film audiences, festival cinephiles and television viewers for over 15 years. He is equally at home interpreting the vision of directors who seek a broad commercial audience or with an avant-garde perspective, directors who favour textured, voluptuous palettes and dramatic composition and those whose films are visually edgy, playful or experimental. His credits include: Stephen T Kay’s CELL 213, Ruba Nadda’s CAIRO TIME, Sarah Polley’s AWAY FROM HER, Guy Maddin’s THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD and Clement Virgo’s POOR BOY’S GAME.

Name:

Marlo Miazga

Title:

Editor in Residence

Biography:

Marlo has been working as an editor in film and television for the last 15 years. A graduate of McGill University and the Canadian Film Centre, Marlo has edited feature films, feature and television documentaries, as well as numerous commercials and music videos.

Notable credits include Peter Wintonick's multiple - award winning NFB feature, CINEMA VERITE; The 5 part series, TUNING IN, hosted by Rick Mercer for CBC Television's 50'th anniversary; the critically successful comedy series, JIMMY MCDONALDS CANADA; Keith Behrman's award winning short film ERNEST, the highly acclaimed CBC Television feature, SEX, DRUGS AND MIDDLE AGE and Paul Fox's psychological thriller, THE DARK HOURS. Marlo has also edited numerous television series and programs for The History Network, The Discovery Channel, CTV, W, Bravo and the CBC including the Gemini nominated programs TOO COLOURFUL FOR THE LEAGUE and ROBERT MARKLE: AN INVESTIGATION. In the past year Marlo has edited Gregory Sheppard's feature comedy, ST. ROZ and created and produced her first television series for the Discovery Channel, CURIOUS AND UNUSUAL DEATHS, to be broadcast in October 2009.

Name:

Maureen Dorey

Title:

Story Editor in Residence

Biography:

Maureen Dorey is a free-lance analyst and story editor who helps writers renew their inspiration and find their voices. Her production credits include: AMAL written by Shaun and Richie Mehta (2007), A STONE’S THROW written by Garfield Lindsay Miller and Camelia Frieberg (director) (2006), MOCCASIN FLATS, SEASON II, RANDOM PASSAGE, an eight-hour mini-series directed by John N. Smith, produced by Passage Films and Cité-Amérique for broadcast on CBC and RTE (Eire), and MILE ZERO, a feature film produced by Anagram Films. Other credits include BORN INTO THIS by writer-director Emmanuel Shirinian, EXTRAORDINARY VISITOR, THE WAR BETWEEN US; LYDDIE, VIOLET and ON MY MIND, 6 x 30 min. children’s dramas.

She has acted as consultant to the National Screen Institute, Praxis Film Works, NIFCO and B.C. Film, and has been Story Editor in Residence to the Canadian Film Centre’s Writers Lab for the past seven years. She has acted as story editor on several Canadian Film Centre Feature Film Projects, including: NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY (produced 2008), THE DARK HOURS, SIBLINGS, HORSIE’S RETREAT and SHOW ME.

Name:

Noel Baker

Title:

Writer in Residence

Biography:

Screenwriter Noel Baker is best known for his screenplay for the Canadian cult classic film, HARD CORE LOGO. He is also the author of the memoir recounting the making of that film, Hard Core Roadshow (Anansi/Stoddart 1997). Among several TV credits, Baker was the co-creator of the Showcase/Oxygen Network dramatic series Show Me Yours, and he developed and co-wrote the pilot for the CBC dramatic series At The Hotel.

As a script doctor/story editor, he has worked since the mid-90s with dozens of writers, directors and producers on feature films, television series and television movies. Selected credits include work on Edoardo Ponti’s BETWEEN STRANGERS, starring Sophia Loren and Mira Sorvino, and The Last Chapter, a CBC miniseries set in the world of criminal biker gangs, and the soon-to-be-released rock and roll vampire comedy Suck, starring Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Moby and others.

A great believer in mentoring new writers, Baker has been Writer-in-Residence at the Canadian Film Centre since 1999 and has taught writing workshops at places as diverse as the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters in Vancouver, the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, SIFT in Ottawa, The Nickel Festival in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Willamette University in Oregon, and United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, UAE.

Among Baker’s “many projects at various stages of development” are the Arabian fable Hamid and Falah, the medieval romantic comedy, The Knight and the Loathly Lady, the dark fantasy, Pig Tale, the horror romance, Echo.

Name:

Rosemary Dunsmore

Title:

Actor in Residence

Biography:

Rosemary is an award-winning actress whose career has taken her onto stages and film and television screens across Canada, the United States and Europe. This year she was given the Actra Award for Best Actress in recognition of her work in THE BABY FORMULA. She began her career on stages across Canada playing leads in Stratford for two seasons and Canadian premieres of shows like Sam Shepherd’s BURIED CHILD and Marsha Norman’s GETTING OUT. Other highlights include a Dora nominated one woman show SINGLE, STRAIGHT AHEAD (selected Best Performer at the Edinburgh Fringe by the London Daily Telegraph), BLIND DANCERS (Dora Award) and plays ranging from PRIVATE LIVES to FALLEN ANGELS (Dora Nomination), THE DOMINO HEART, THE GLASS MENAGERIE and THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE. She was awarded the Masque Award for Interpretation Feminine for her performance in WIT and was nominated for her work in LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. Also in Montreal, she was given the MECCA award for Best Actress for her work in GLORIOUS! Last year in Toronto, she appeared in FESTEN and THE SISTERS ROSENSWEIG.

Rosemary entered the world of the camera with equal success. Her first major television appearance in CBC’s Blind Faith won her the Earl Grey Award for Best Performance in a Leading Role. Her frequent television appearances have garnered her four Gemini nominations. She is probably best known for her role as “Katherine Brooke” in Anne Of Green Gables-The Sequel, and the title role in the CBC series MOM P.I. She split her time between Los Angeles, Vancouver and Toronto. While in LA she appeared in many TV series and movies of the week. Some favourite roles were in Total Recall, Twins, The Interrogation of Michael Crowe, Dreamcatcher and Citizen Duane. Recent projects include the BBC miniseries Burn Up, The Good Times are Killing Me, Too Late to Say Goodbye, Playing House, Wedding Wars, St. Urbain’s Horseman, At Home By Myself with Me and Orphan.

Rosemary is also a sought after theatre director. Some of the plays she has directed are VIRGINIA, HOCKEY MOM. HOCKEY DAD MEASURE FOR MEASURE, DINNER WITH FRIENDS, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, JANE EYRE, FIGHTING WORDS (Dora Nomination for Best Director), WALKING ON CRIMSON, THE GLACE BAY MINER’S MUSEUM, WHALE MUSIC, HERE ON THE FLIGHT PATH and SEXY LAUNDRY. She will direct BORDERTOWN CAFÉ this year in Victoria and Winnipeg.

Rosemary teaches at Equity Showcase, the National Theatre School, University of Toronto, S.I.F.T., George Brown College, Humber College, Film Training Manitoba and Halifax Shortworks. Rosemary is listed in Who’s Who in Canada and in 1990 was included on Maclean’s Magazine’s Honour Roll as “a Canadian who makes a difference.”

Name:

Susan Alexander

Title:

TV Producer in Residence

Biography:

Susan Alexander recently joined Canwest as a Production Executive for their dramatic channels Global, SHOWCASE and TVtropolis, overseeing the development and production of a variety of dramatic series including Cra$h & Burn, The Foundation, Exes & Ohs and Producing Parker.

Having been in the industry for over 20 years, Susan has worked in a variety of production roles on some of Canada’s leading series. Prior to joining Canwest Susan was a producer on various shows, including the SHOWCASE comedy series G-Spot, Drop the Beat and Exhibit A. She developed, was a producer and writer on the critically acclaimed CBC comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, where she garnered a Gemini Award.

In her role as director of drama development for Barna Alper Productions and Minds Eye Pictures, some of Canada’s leading production companies, Susan was involved in the development of many successful Canadian projects including CTV’s The Bridge, CBC miniseries on the lives of Don Cherry and Tommy Douglas, and the comedy series Da Kink in My Hair for Global TV.

In addition to drama, Susan has been a Supervising Producer on over 100 episodes of lifestyle programming, including the hit series The Designer Guys for HGTV, for which she received a CFTPA Indie Award for Best Lifestyle Series.

Susan is a proud graduate of the Canadian Film Centre where she currently is their TV consultant. She is a member of the Writers Guild of Canada and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.