Jane Seymour Fonda is an American actress, activist, and former fashion model. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda is the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, the Honorary Palme d'Or, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Daryl Christine Hannah is an American actress and environmental activist. She made her screen debut in Brian De Palma's supernatural horror film The Fury (1978). She has starred in various movies across the years, including as Pris Stratton in Ridley Scott's science fiction thriller Blade Runner (1982) and as Cathy Featherstone in Randal Kleiser's romantic comedy Summer Lovers (1982), as the mermaid Madison in Ron Howard's fantasy-romantic comedy Splash (1984), Roxanne Kowalski in the romantic comedy Roxanne (1987), Darien Taylor in Oliver Stone's drama Wall Street (1987), and Annelle Dupuy Desoto in the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias (1989). In 2004, Hannah won a Saturn Award for her role as one-eyed assassin Elle Driver in Quentin Tarantino's two-part martial arts action film Kill Bill. In 2015, she appeared in the Netflix series Sense8 as Angelica Turing.
Mina Shum is an independent Canadian filmmaker. She is a writer and director of award-winning feature films, numerous shorts and has created site specific installations and theatre. Her features, Double Happiness and Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity both premiered in the US at the Sundance Film Festival and Double Happiness won the Wolfgang Staudte Prize for Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival and the Audience Award at Torino. She was director resident at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She was also a member of an alternative rock band called Playdoh Republic.
Shailene Diann Woodley is an American actress. Born in San Bernardino, California, Woodley was raised in Simi Valley, and started modeling at the age of four and began acting professionally in minor television roles. She first gained prominence for her starring role as Amy Juergens in the ABC Family drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013). She subsequently made her film debut in The Descendants (2011), winning a Cannes Trophée Chopard and receiving nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and for three Critics' Choice Movie Awards. She went on to star in the coming-of-age film The Spectacular Now (2013), for which she won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Sonja Bennett is a Canadian actress and screenwriter. Her film debut was in the Canadian feature film Punch (2002), for which she won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a Canadian Film. She has since starred in the films Donovan's Echo, Cole, Control Alt Delete, Young People Fucking, and Fido as well as the television series Godiva's and Cold Squad. In 2014, Bennett made her screenwriting debut with Preggoland in which she also starred.
Joseph Wright is a British film director residing in Somerset, England. His motion pictures include the literary adaptations Pride & Prejudice (2005), Anna Karenina (2012), and Cyrano (2021), the romantic war drama Atonement (2007), the action thriller Hanna (2011), Peter Pan origin story Pan (2015), and Darkest Hour (2017), a political drama following Winston Churchill during World War II nominated for Best Picture.
Thomas "Thom" Fitzgerald is an American-Canadian film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright and producer.
Margo Martindale is an esteemed American character actress who has appeared on television, film, and stage. In 2011, she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Critics' Choice Television Award for her recurring role as Mags Bennett on Justified. Martindale was nominated for an Emmy Award four times for her recurring role as Claudia on The Americans, winning the award in 2015 and 2016. She has played supporting roles in a number of films, including Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The Hours, Million Dollar Baby, Uncle Frank, Dead Man Walking, The Firm, Lorenzo's Oil, The Rocketeer, ...First Do No Harm, Eye of God, Win Win, Marvin's Room, Forged, Orphan, The Savages, Hannah Montana: The Movie, August: Osage County, and Paris, je t'aime. Martindale was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in 2004 for her performance in the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She also voiced a fictionalized version of herself in the Netflix adult-animated show BoJack Horseman.
Parvathy Thiruvothu Kottuvattaa is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Malayalam and Tamil-language films. She is the recipient of a National Film Award, four Filmfare Awards South, and two Kerala State Film Awards.
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest Indigenous film and media arts festival, held annually in Toronto in the month of October. The festival focuses on the film, video, radio, and new media work of Indigenous, Aboriginal and First Peoples from around the world. The festival includes screenings, parties, panel discussions, and cultural events.
Cloudburst is a 2011 Canadian-American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald and starring Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker. The film is an adaptation of Fitzgerald's 2010 play of the same name. Cloudburst premiered at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia on September 16, 2011. It opened in a limited release in Canada on December 7, 2012.
Zoe Leigh Hopkins is a Canadian Heiltsuk/Mohawk writer and film director who began her career in acting in 1991 and later pursued filmmaking.
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a Blackfoot and Sámi filmmaker, actor, producer from the Kainai First Nation in Canada. She has won several accolades for her film work, including multiple Canadian Screen Awards.
Ta'Kaiya Skoden Stoodis Kayden Gwanden Blaney is a singer, award-winning actress, speaker, and environmental activist from the Tla A'min Nation in British Columbia, Canada. She is an ambassador for the Native Children’s Survival Indigenous Children Fund and Salish Sea Youth Foundation and is known for giving speeches at UN meetings around the world, including Rio+20 and TUNZA UN.
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is an Inuk filmmaker, known for her work on Inuit life and culture. She is the owner of Unikkaat Studios, a production company in Iqaluit, which produces Inuktitut-language films. She was awarded the Canadian Meritorious Service Cross, in 2017 in recognition of her work as an activist and filmmaker. She currently works part-time at the Qanak Collective, a social project which supports Inuit empowerment initiatives.
Edge of the Knife is a 2018 Canadian drama film co-directed by Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown. It is the first feature film spoken only in the Haida language. Set in 19th-century Haida Gwaii, it tells the classic Haida story of a traumatized and stranded man transformed into Gaagiixiid, the wildman.
Falls Around Her is a 2018 Canadian drama film, directed by Darlene Naponse. The film stars Tantoo Cardinal as Mary Birchbark, an internationally famous First Nations musician who returns to her home community to recharge and reevaluate her life, only to find that her fame is not so easily left behind.
nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Tasha Hubbard and released in 2019. The film centres on the 2016 death of Colten Boushie, and depicts his family's struggle to attain justice after the controversial acquittal of Boushie's killer. Narrated by Hubbard, the film also includes a number of animated segments which contextualize the broader history of indigenous peoples of Canada.
Brother, I Cry is a Canadian drama film, directed by Jessie Anthony and released in 2020. The film stars Justin Rain as Jon, a young First Nations man struggling with drug addiction.
