PROGRAM ADVISORY BOARD
JULIA IVANOVA
PROGRAM ADVISORY BOARD
INSTRUCTOR
Julia Ivanova has received many accolades for her compelling films, including the award for Best Canadian Feature for Family Portrait in Black and White at Hot Docs 2011. Her films include From Russia, for Love (2000); Fatherhood Dreams (2007); and Limit Is the Sky (2016), which won the Colin Low Best Canadian Documentary Award at DOXA 2017. Her documentaries have screened at Sundance, IDFA, and the Chicago and LA film festivals, among many others; she is currently working on the feature Pipeline in Paradise, about two opposite human forces in Canada that are connected by the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
Born and raised in Moscow, Ivanova immigrated to Vancouver in the 1990s; since then, she’s established herself as a balanced and empathetic cinematic voice, digging into the dilemmas perpetuated by the search for a place, love, family and meaning by those who have two homes and two identities. With a focus on capturing the complexities of human nature, Ivanova brings her signature non-judgmental style to the telling of unique Canadian stories.
She has made a number of intimate films on the topics of love, adoption, cultural differences and family, partnering with CBC, Global TV, Knowledge Network, PBS and Discovery. Ivanova has been actively involved in the documentary filmmaking community by organizing professional development workshops for DOC BC, co-chairing DOC BC, being on the Board of Hot Docs Festival and mentoring emerging filmmakers through “Giving Voice” DOC program. Being a director/editor/cinematographer and an avid fan of international documentaries, she believes in the emotional power of visual storytelling and poetic cinema.
JOHN RITCHIE
PROGRAM ADVISORY BOARD
With over thirty years of experience, John Ritchie has overseen the creation of more than 500 hours of documentary and scripted films, television series and one-offs through his company Force Four Entertainment, which was acquired by Entertainment One in 2014. John is now heading his own independent company. John began his career writing and directing documentaries, including numerous biographies for CBC, as well as natural history, science and social issue documentaries for broadcasters such as CTV, Discovery U.S, Knowledge and W Network. He produced the multiple award-winning feature length documentary 65 Red Roses (CBC/OWN), which won awards at the Banff World Media Festival and Vancouver Film Festival and was selected to the Oprah Winfrey Documentary Club.
Highlights of John’s career in the scripted realm include executive producing two seasons of the sitcom series Seed, (CITY/ The CW). He has also executive produced numerous television movies, including Playing for Keeps (CTV/ Lifetime) and was a co-producer of the Peabody Award-winning mini-series Human Cargo (CBC). He has also won numerous Gemini, Leo and Canadian Screen Awards for his work.
John has a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia and a Diploma of Media from Capilano University and is Board Chair of FactualWEST, an annual Vancouver conference for factual television and documentary filmmakers. He is also Chair of the BCIT Broadcast Media Program Advisory Committee.
NIMISHA MUKERJI
PROGRAM ADVISORY BOARD
An award-winning producer, director and writer, Nimisha Mukerji’s work has premiered in competition at Tribeca and Toronto International Film Festival, and her debut feature 65_REDROSES was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her Documentary Club on OWN. The film went on to be acquired by Netflix and Hulu and was awarded Best Canadian Program at Banff World Media Festival.
Subsequent features include producing JACINTA (in competition at Tribeca 2020), directing and producing TEMPEST STORM (released theatrically by Mongrel Media), and directing and producing BLOOD RELATIVE, which received 3 CSA nomination (Canada’s version of the Emmy’s) and was her second nomination for directing.
Mukerji was selected for TIFF Pitch This! as well as the Hot Docs Forum (twice), winning Best Canadian Pitch with TEMPEST STORM. She launched a successful Kickstarter for the film, raising over $45K. Most recently she produced the 65_RedRoses Anniversary Gala in partnership with the Directors Guild of Canada and raised over $30K for transplant research. To date 65_REDROSES has helped raise over 3 million dollars for Cystic Fibrosis research.
Mukerji has written and produced work for HBO, PBS, CBC, Knowledge, Super Channel, ARTE and SWR. She’s been recognized with a DGC nomination for directing on Disney’s Gabby Duran & The Unsittables and won four Leo Awards, most recently winning for her episodic work as director on the teen sci-fi series MECH-X4 for Disney XD.
Mukerji is an alumni of TIFF’s Talent Lab, the CTV National Fellowship Program, WIDC’s Story & Leadership Lab, DGC Ontario’s Director Lab, the NSI’s Totally Television Program and Women In Views Director’s Program. She has been recognized with awards for artistic achievement by Women In Film & Television Vancouver and the University of British Columbia. She is represented by The Kaplan Stahler Agency and Meridian Artists and splits her time between Vancouver and Los Angeles. www.shotglassproductions.com
LYNN BOOTH
PROGRAM ADVISORY BOARD
Lynn Booth is the founder & CEO of Make Believe Media. As a company we have had many phases, focusing on pop culture and social issues documentary films, then we produced several seasons of popular true crime series and then we launched into natural history programmes. Lynn’s extensive credit list includes VICE Documentary’s ‘The Devil You Know’, Very Bad Men, True Pulp Murder, Portraits from the Frontier, Paris Stories, No Fun City, The Secret Life of Owls, For the Love of Elephants and many more.
Lynn’s first digital media platform project was the cutting edge Indigenous Music Project, RPM.FM, launched under the creative leadership of Jarrett Martineau (rpm.fm)which continues to this day under 100% Indigenous leadership and control, a winner of United Nations Festival Awards. Now, Lynn is taking a new direction and focusing on VR/AR Content Creation for digital and social platforms and creating documentary content for new frontiers.
INSTRUCTORS
DAVID VAISBORD
INSTRUCTOR
David Vaisbord completed his Bachelors of Arts at the UBC before going to Emily Carr to complete his Masters of Arts in Applied Arts, Art, Filmmaking, and Multimedia.
Some of David Vaisbord’s films and documentaries include Drawing Out the Demons, Juicy Danger Meets Burning Man, Mischa, Britannia Beach, and Dark Pines: An Investigation into the Death of Tom Thomson. In 2008 Vaisbord embedded himself in a low-income community and created the hyperlocal doc project The Little Mountain Project, iterating several short advocacy films, a website and blogsite, gallery installations, a successful crowdfunding campaign and an MA thesis.
From 2014 – 2019 through his participation on executive boards for both national and local chapters, Vaisbord lent his leadership skills to the growth of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) and Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival. Throughout, Vaisbord was continuously inspired by the passion, wit and imagination of documentary filmmakers and is looking forward to a lively exchange of ideas with the students at the InFocus Film School.
JEREMY KLASSEN
INSTRUCTOR
With over fifteen years of experience working on film and video productions, Jeremy Klassen has accumulated a diverse and practical knowledge of many intricate aspects of filmmaking. He has worked on productions ranging from corporate videos and commercials to documentaries, music videos, television series and narrative films. He’s edited several televised films including Hunted By My Ex, Secret Crush, Fatal Mistakes, Psycho Wedding Crasher, and The Murderer Upstairs, to name a few.
BRISHKAY AHMED
INSTRUCTOR
Brishkay Ahmed is an Afghan-Canadian filmmaker drawn to social issues and activism. She studied film at New York University and the Iranian Young Cinema Society. She holds a degree in Communication from Simon Fraser University. She is a part of both the Directors Guild of Canada and the Writer’s Guild of Canada.
As a documentary filmmaker, her film cover investigative topics. Brishkay’s films include the award-winning features Unveiled: The Kohistan Video Scandal and In The Rumbling Belly of Motherland. Her 2022 web documentary, Fatima In Kabul, was nominated for the 2022 Canadian Screen Awards and a 2022 Banff Rockie Awards.
Throughout her career, Brishkay Ahmed has collaborated with the CBC, Super Channel, NFB, Bravo TV, Java Films, Women Make Movies, Telefilm, Cinema Politica and RTA on projects. Brishkay Ahmed currently serves on the Documentary Organization Board of Canada, BC Chapter.
I acknowledge, I live and work on the unceded Indigenous land belonging to the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
DAN JACKSON
INSTRUCTOR
Dan Jackson began his career working for Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Charles Guggenheim. While living in Washington DC, he wrote, directed and edited the award-winning shorts “David’s Run” and “Anything Can Happen.” After re-locating to Los Angeles, he directed on multiple seasons of “Rescue 911” and other reality-based series. He wrote, directed and produced documentaries on Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, America’s Military Academies and the Harley-Davidson V-Rod.
For ten years, he was an in-house show runner for Thom Beer’s Original Productions, overseeing the series “Monster House”, “Crash Files: Inside the NTSB”, “Impact: Stories of Survival” and “L.A. Hard Hats”. In 2010, he relocated to Vancouver BC, where he worked as a show runner on “Highway Thur Hell” (Discover/Netflix), “Diagnose Me” (Discovery Life), “Confessions: Animal Hoarding” (Animal Planet/Netflix), “This Is High School” (CBC) and “Age of A.I.” (YouTube). He wrote the travel memoir “Old Bug”, which won the Independent Publishers Assoc. Award Ben Franklin Award for Best New Voice.
MANJULA DUFRESNE
INSTRUCTOR
Manjula Dufresne is an experienced investigative producer, until recently with CBC News Go Public, The National and CBC British Columbia.
She broke the story of sexual harassment in the RCMP which led to a large body of work and several awards including a Webster for Best News Reporting, a citation of merit for the Michener Awards, the CAJ Scoop Award and an RTDNA Edward R. Murrow award. She has done a variety of stories over her long career including covering all aspects of the Air India bombing file, the Pickton file, immigration scams and politics at every level.
Her favourite part about being a journalist is discovering something not known before and holding people to account.
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INFOCUS FILM SCHOOL
554 Seymour Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 3J5
info@infocusfilmschool.com
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