Toronto Board & Staff

Board

Lalita Krishna, Co-Chair LALITA KRISHNA, DOC Toronto Co-Chair
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.

Michael McMahonMICHAEL McMAHON DOC Toronto Co-Chair
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.

Eric GeringasERIC GERINGAS, DOC Toronto Secretary
Eric is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has taken him everywhere from the jungles of Africa to some of the world's toughest kitchens. His film "Cheating Death" (2005), a portrait of a Trinidadian-Canadian crack dealer leaving the streets, won a Golden Sheaf at the Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival. His most recent film, "Clubland", a provocative portrait of Toronto's overcrowded nightclub district, was an official selection at Hot Docs in 2009. Eric's television work includes At the Table With, a Gemini-nominated documentary series for the Food Network, and Ancestors in the Attic for History Television. In 2007, he won a Gemini Award for his directing on the long-running series Opening Soon. Born in Latvia, in the former Soviet Union, Eric came to Canada in 1975, and grew up in Toronto. He speaks English, Russian and French.

DORLENE 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.

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.

LEANNA CROUCH 
GITA HOSEK
LANA LOVELL
MICHAEL McNAMARA
DANIJEL MARGETIC
ERIN YOUNG

Bios to come...

DOC TORONTO STAFF

JACKIE 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.

ALLIE CALDWELL, Coordinator
Allie Caldwell graduated from the Communication Studies program at Concordia University in 2007. In addition to her work coordinating DOC Toronto’s events and communications, Allie co-owns the production company CH Films and is currently producing her first documentary for broadcast, Unheralded, which was selected as the 2009/10 winner of the TVO/NFB Calling Card program.