Toronto Board & Staff

Board

 

JamesJAMES BUFFIN
James is a producer/director/cinematographer based in Toronto. Currently he is filming projects about: the family of a Native Residential School Survivor; a storm chaser in Nebraska; and the aftermath of the 2009 South Pacific tsunami. James has worked in the film and television industry for over 22 years and has held an array of positions across Canada, the US, and the South Pacific. James’ commitment to empowering people and communities is reflected in the stature of his teaching clients which include the staff of the Indonesian Consulate in Toronto, Planet in Focus (Youth Camera Action and Greenscreenz Programs). James writes regularly for POV magazine and currently sits on the DOC Toronto board. He owns a production company, Veritus Pictures, through which he does both commissioned work and documentary passion projects.

 

NickNICK DE PENCIER
Nicholas de Pencier is a director, producer, and director of photography specializing in documentary for the past 20 years. He is President of Mercury Films (mercuryfilms.ca).

As both producer and DOP  his credits include Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles (Genie & Banff Rockie nominations, International Emmy in 1999). Also The Holier It Gets, (Best Cultural and Best Independent at Hot Docs, 2000, Geminis for best writing, editing, and direction in a documentary series, nomination, Donald Brittain Award). In 2002 he produced and shot The True Meaning of Pictures (TIFF, Sundance, Best Arts Doc Gemini). This was followed in 2003 by Hockey Nomad (nominated for Banff Rockie, as well as three Geminis, won the Best Sports). He also co-directed, produced and photographed for TVOntario a series of 40 short profiles on artists who have received Ontario Arts Council grants over the past 40 years.

He produced Manufactured Landscapes, (Chum City Award - best Canadian feature TIFF 2006, Genie for best Doc,distributed in 15 countries). He also directed and partially shot Four Wings and a Prayer, (Grand Prix Pariscience,  Banff Rockie best Wildlife and Natural History Program, Jules Verne Nature Award, Gemini nominations for Best Science, Cinematography and Direction, Emmy nomination for PBS NOVA version).  He was producer and DOP on Act of God (opening night film, Hot Docs 2009). Among ongoing DOP work for docs and doc series on CBC, History, Discovery, National Geographic and many others, he has recently been shooting the documentary adaptation of Payback, Margaret Atwood's Massey Lecture on debt which will be released theatrically in Canada in March 2012 and producing and shooting a feature doc on water with Edward Burtynsky.

 

Charlotte EngelCHARLOTTE ENGEL
Charlotte Engel has worked in film and television for over 20 years. Starting out in production, she cut her teeth working on indie Canadian films like Highway 61, The Adjuster and moved onto blockbusters like The Scarlet Letter and Ginger Snaps.  In 2001, she joined CHUM television and over saw the development and production of television series, one off documentaries and performing arts specials for many of the CHUM channels, such as Bravo!, Star, Sex TV, City TV and Fashion TV (Bathroom Divas, Strip Search, Cover Stories, and Lookalike). In 2007, CHUM was bought by CTV and Engel stayed on, commissioning and developing programming for Star, Bravo! and Book TV.  Under the CTV banner, Bravo! was able to produce many high quality series and one off documentaries that have been sold world wide and have garnered many awards. In Sept. 2011, CTV was bought by Bell Media. In May 2011, Engel left Bell Media as they decided to concentrate more on drama. She set up Rock Yenta Productions Inc. and she currently has three documentaries in development. Engel sits on the Board of Directors of imagineNATIVE. She also mentors documentary filmmakers and participates on many documentary oriented panels throughout the year.

 

GitaGITA HOSEK
Gita Hosek has been around the film, television and radio business all her life. After completing her M.F.A from the Academy of Film & Television Art (Documentary Film Unit) in her native Czechoslovakia, she began working for the Czechoslovakian National Television. Since coming to Canada with her family in 1988 she has been active in the Canadian Television and Film industry producing films and TV shows/series for CBC, TVO, Vision TV, LifeNetwork and OLN. Two of her series - “On the Road to Jerusalem” and “Waiting for Christmas”, that were produced by her production company for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, received awards at the 45th annual Columbus International Film & Video Festival in Columbus Ohio. For the past five years she has been an Executive Board Member of the Documentary Organization of Canada that represents almost 600 documentary filmmakers from across the country.

 

Lalita LALITA KRISHNA
Lalita is a multiple award winning filmmaker whose work has been broadcast   nationally on all major networks, and featured at film festivals around the world. Her documentaries on kids who change the world have had successful sales in the Canadian and international educational market. Lalita has been awarded the DreamCatcher Award for using her craft to better humanity and her film “Jambo Kenya” is the first selection for TIFFG’S John Van Duzer Children’s Film Collection. Her company, In Sync Video, incorporated Breakout Media (2008) which specializes in new media production in partnership with award winning game producers, designers and developers. The In Sync Video group has multiple productions in the pipeline:  documentaries, television series, and cross platform interactive documentary projects.

 

DorleneDORLENE LIN
Dorlene is the co-owner of the production company OneStone Entertainment Inc., which she runs with her co-producer, Naela Choudhary. From 2004 to 2008, Dorlene produced 3 seasons ( 39 episodes)  of  "I Do…Let’s Eat!", 13 part, half-hour documentary series about the weddings and banquets of different cultures. "I Do…Let’s Eat!" is broadcast in Canada on Food Network Canada, and SLICE, and has sold to over 30 countries worldwide. The series was nominated for a 2006 Gemini Award for Best Lifestyle program. In September 2002, OneStone Entertainment delivered it’s first independent film, an Al Waxman Calling Card documentary entitled "Chinese Daughters", broadcast on TVOntario’s  The View From Here, in February 2003. "Chinese Daughters"  received the Best Documentary Short Award at The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival 2003. It was nominated for the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary at the 2003 Gemini Awards and a Golden Sheaf Award at the 2003 Yorkton Short Film Festival.

 

DanijelDANIJEL MARGETIC
Over the last seven years Danijel has produced, written and directed more than 20 films of various genres and lengths, which have earned him multiple awards, including the Norman Jewison Filmmaker Award. In 2005, following his graduation from Ryerson, he formed Balkan Films, a documentary production company. His debut full-length documentary “Brotherhood and Unity” was broadcast on OMNI in 2007, while his follow-up project, entitled “Heaven or Not” was selected for the NFB-TVO Calling Card program and premiered on TVO in Spring of 2008. Danijel is a graduate of the 2007 CFC Film Producer’s Lab, and his most recent fiction short, entitled “The Exit” premiered this year at AFF. He sits on the board of the Toronto chapter of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) and the Board of Directors of Hot Docs International Film Festival.

 

LizLIZ MARSHALL
Liz Marshall is an auteur director who fuses cinematic storytelling with social and environmental justice issues. She has created award winning and socially relevant documentary projects shot all over the world which focus on a range of significant global issues including the right to water; HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa; the rights of girls in developing countries; censorship affecting writers and journalists; war-affected children; corporate globalization; sweatshop labour, and refugees. Liz Marshall’s most recent film is Water on the Table (2010), an award winning and Gemini nominated theatrical and broadcast documentary featuring Maude Barlow’s crusade to have water declared a human right. She sits on the board of DOC Toronto.



michaelMICHAEL McMAHON
Over the past twenty years, Michael has produced some of Canada's most successful and daring feature documentary films, and documentary series for television. He is the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Hot Docs, North America's largest documentary film festival; the Co-Chair of the Toronto Chapter of the Documentary Organization of Canada, an industry group representing 700 documentary filmmakers across Canada, and he sits on the Industry Advisory Committee of the Toronto International Film Festival. Michael holds a degree in English Literature and Film Theory, and is a graduate of the Banff Centre for the Arts. He is a founding partner in Primitive Entertainment.


MichaelMICHAEL MCNAMARA
Born in Chicago and raised in the US, England and Windsor, Canada, Michael McNamara presently lives in Toronto where he works as a filmmaker, screenwriter and director. In February 2002, he launched Markham Street Films with his partner Judy Holm, specializing in projects that are edgy, smart, provocative and funny.  McNamara received a 2004 Gemini nomination for writing Radio Revolution - The Rise and Fall of The Big 8 (History Television Canada), which he also directed and narrated. The film, about legendary Windsor radio station CKLW, went on to win the 2004 Best History Program Gemini.  His series of positive body image documentaries Flatly Stacked, Stacked Like Me and Penis Dementia: The Search for the Perfect Penis has been seen in over 40 countries.   He wrote and directed Driven by Vision, a 17-part series on visionary outsider artists and won a Gemini for Best Direction in a Documentary Series. His feature documentary, 100 Films & A Funeral, about the rise and fall of PolyGram Films, is being distributed internationally by MGM Pictures.  He has served on the DOC Toronto board for several years, representing Toronto on the DOC National board. He also serves on the executive committes for POV Magazine and the Hot Docs International Film Festival.

 

Summer PreneySUMMER PRENEY
Director, producer, cinematographer and the creator of Deltatime Productions, Summer gained a foothold in film as a documentary researcher and producer.  Her lifelong political activism coupled with a BA in political science helped ignite a passion for documentary filmmaking, and in 2004, she made her directorial debut with "Rock the Nation", distributed by Tricon Films Inc. Her unconventional style helped secure her place as Canada’s “it” girl for fresh, edgy pop culture as she went on to produce several short documentaries showcasing up-and-coming Canadian fashion designers and musicians – a series that was broadcast internationally on the German public television station, WDR. As the driving force behind Deltatime Productions, she heads up a team of creative talent whose passion for politics and music helped create the feature documentary, "Sounds Like a Revolution", the story of some of the most political musicians of our time and their struggle to be heard. A member of the Documentary Organization of Canada for nearly 5 years, Summer has been active in all facets of organization - from the annual Hot Docs AGM to sponsorship initiatives to advocacy and membership outreach.   Summer remains committed to the improvement and expansion of this vital organization.

 

Rama RauRAMA RAU

Rama is a writer-director who trained in films on one of the largest film sets in India. Her passion is to make international films that examine “the extraordinariness of ordinary lives”. Her production company, TriNetra Productions has recently released "A Day in the Life of Vij’s" (2009) an intimate, behind the scenes look at Vancouver’s finest Indian restaurant. "Losing My Religion" (2008) is a deeply personal and revealing look at the connections between faith and religious tensions in a post 9/11 world; "Fingers of Fire" (2006) which premiered at the 2006 New York International Film Festival was filmed across four cities in Canada and three in India, where a struggling Indo Canadian classical musician tries to find his footing in the tight-knit backstage world of classical music in India. Rama has won the Tom Shoebridge Screenwriting Award (CSTC, 2004), and has received the ‘Filmmaker of the Year’ award by the Toronto Business Forum, has been named a Quebecor Fellow of DOC, (Documentary Organization of Canada) and has served on various juries, and presently serves on the DOC Toronto Board. Rama is currently working on The Market (2010) for TV Ontario and other international broadcasters.


DOC TORONTO STAFF

JackieJACKIE GARROW, Managing Director
Over a decade ago, Jackie Garrow graduated from McGill University with an Honours degree in Political Science and Women’s Studies; following that she received a photojournalism diploma from the Western Academy of Photography. For several years, she pursued nature photography and travel photojournalism--exhibiting her work at venues like the Wagner Rosenbaum Gallery, publishing two Insight Guides as well as award winning articles in outdoor adventure magazines. Her passion for globetrotting with camera in hand was facilitated in large part through her ongoing contractual employment at luxury travel outfitter-- Butterfield & Robinson (B&R). At B&R Jackie played a key role on the marketing and communications team, led the corporate donations program and ran expedition trips in Morocco and South America. Before coming to work at DOC Toronto Jackie held the post of Development Manager at Sky Works Charitable Foundation where she raised money for documentary films/community development projects focused on social justice issues.