Robin McKenna

Director, Producer, Writer

GIFT is Robin’s first feature documentary. Currently, she is directing a short film with the National Film Board for the Governor General’s Awards for the Performing Arts – and finishing Thanadoula, a short animated documentary fairytale about a girl’s search for her older sister and the “crow magic” connecting them. She is producer/co-director of Medicine, a feature documentary in post-production, about ayahuasca, medicine and healing.

Robin began making films with La Course destination monde. Her film The Great War Experience won Yorkton Film Festival’s Founders’ Award in 2007. Her cinematography credits include City of Borders (Berlinale, Hot Docs 2008) and The Take with Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis (AFI Best Documentary, 2004.) She is an alumnus of Hot Docs Doc Lab, and has been a filmmaker-mentor with Wapikoni Mobile.

Ina Fichman

Producer

Ina Fichman, Intuitive Pictures, has been producing award-winning documentaries, fiction films, and youth series for more than 25 years, and is one of Canada’s pioneers in cross-platform media projects. In collaboration with partners worldwide, Ina has produced films which have premiered at international festivals, distributed in theatres in Canada and the United States, and broadcast on major networks including CBC/Radio-Canada, ARTE, Canal Plus and PBS. Recent credits include The Wanted 18, Monsoon (TIFF People’s Choice Award 2014), Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt, and Game Fever. Daniel Sivan’s The Patriot, is currently being released in theatres in the US. Most recently, The Oslo Diaries, in co-production with Medalia Films, Israel, had its world premiere at Sundance 2018 where it sold to HBO, and Laila at the Bridge will premiere at the prestigious CPH-DOX. Intuitive Pictures is currently in production with feature docs Abortion 2.0, Blue Box, and Inside Lehman Brothers.

Mahi Rahgozar

Editor

Mahi Rahgozar has been editing films in all genres for the past 20 years. She has an impeccable sense of story and pace and a relentless eye for detail. In Denmark, Mahi edited the short comedy This Charming Man which won an Oscar in the “Best Short Live Action” category at the 2002 Academy Awards. She since has edited a number of award winning films, both documentary and fiction – including the feature documentary Bee Nation, opening night film of the 2017 Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival. Mahi now lives in Toronto, Canada.

Mark O’Fearghail

Cinematographer

Mark is best known for his work on Deepak Rauniyar’s Nepali co-production White Sun (produced by Joslyn Barnes/Louverture Films) which took Best International Film at Venice, Silver Screen Award for Best Film at the Singapore Film Festival and the New Voices/New Visions award at Palm Springs in 2017. Mark co-directed and shot Tawai: A Voice From the Forest which premiered in 2017 in the UK. Also released in 2017 was the award-winning fiction feature Venus.

Past work includes This Changes Everything by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, Yung Chang’s The Fruit Hunters, The Take (AFI Best Feature), Rip – A Remix Manifesto (Audience Award at IDFA) which he co-directed, and Big Sugar (Prix Gémeaux for best documentary). More recently, Mark shot ultra high-speed visuals for the Montreal Opera’s presentation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall – and created visuals for Crystal, the latest show by Cirque De Soleil.

Nicolas Canniccioni

Cinematographer

Nicolas Canniccioni is an award-winning cinematographer, based in Montreal, Quebec. His credits include The Demons, Gerontophilia, Come Worry with Us!, Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves, and The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches – and others shown at Cannes, Berlinale and festivals worldwide.

Sylvain Bellemare

Sound Design

Sylvain Bellemare was born on February 20, 1968 in Montreal. He began working in film in 1993 as assistant to the team’s film Love and Human Remains by Denys Arcand. He won his first prize in 2011 Gemini Award for best sound on the movie La part de l’ombre. He has worked several times with French director Bertrand Bonello and Quebec directors André Turpin, Philippe Falardeau, Stéphane Lafleur and Denis Villeneuve. In 2016, he won an Academy Award for his sound work on Arrival.

Serge Nakachi Pelletier

Composer

After years of successfully matching imagery to his music for his group Pawa up First, Serge Nakauchi Pelletier is returning the favor and demonstrates today that he has also mastered the art of marrying his music to images.

His interest in and passion for visual arts has led him to provide his own music for projects such as: Le Pacte des Anges (2016), Lâcher Prise (2016), Waseskun (2016), Le Coeur Régulier (2016), Le Démantèlement (2013), Whitewash (2013), Dolorès (2011), Tromper le silence (2009), and documentaries like La Reine malade (2011, Prix ÉcoCaméra), La vérité du pouvoir : Bernie Ecclestone (2010). He has also collaborated with Beast, Ariane Moffatt, Xavier Cafeine, Camaromance, Boogat, Akido, Alexandre Désilet et Betty Bonifassi.