The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October.
Molly Parker is a Canadian actress, writer, and director. She is best known for her roles in independent films, as well as television. Her accolades include two Genie Awards, one Independent Spirit Awards nomination, one Primetime Emmy Award nomination, and three nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award.
Khaled Muhammad Samy Abol Naga, credited as Khaled Abol Naga and by the mononym Kal Naga, is an Egyptian actor, director and producer. He is recognized primarily for his work in Egypt and the Middle East, but has increasingly ventured into American and British film and television roles. He started acting and directing plays and musicals in Egypt while studying theatre at The American University in Cairo. Beginning his professional acting career in 2000, Naga starred in several movies through the next decade with roles encompassing several genres, from musicals None but that! (2007), action Agamista (2007), Eyes Of A Thief (2014), thrillers Kashf Hesab (2007), art-house Heliopolis (2009), Villa 69 (2013), Decor (2014), and slapstick comedy Habibi Naêman (2008). Additionally, he has participated in several European film festivals, where he received a range of awards as an actor and producer. Since 2016, he has acted in several English-speaking roles, such as Tyrant on FX, History Channel's Vikings, and the BBC's TV mini-series The Last Post, and announced to appear in the upcoming Netflix Show Messiah 2019. In a film festival in 2016 that celebrated Arab film submissions to the Oscars, he was noted as being the most submitted actor in Arabic films submissions to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He is often tagged in western media as "Egypt's Brad Pitt", and he has also been described as "the next Omar Sharif" especially after his American debut movie Civic Duty in 2007. Chosen as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in 2007, Naga played a pivotal role in child rights awareness, as well as the very first HIV awareness campaigns in Egypt and the Arab world, and participated in several international causes, including advocating for democracy in his home country Egypt. He is one of the most recognizable celebrity faces of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, taking part in mass demonstrations in Cairo that led to the removal of President Mubarak. He faced defamation campaigns against him by the state-owned media during the Mubarak era before the January 25th, 2011 revolution in Egypt, and several times again from the 2013 "coup d'etat" General Sisi government in Egypt in retaliation for his advocacy about the deterioration of human rights situation in Egypt.
Dennis Foon is a Canadian playwright, producer, screenwriter and novelist.
Jamie Travis is a Toronto-based filmmaker who has written and directed award-winning short films, music videos and television commercials. He received international recognition for his two short film trilogies, The Patterns and The Saddest Children in the World.
The Air Canada enRoute Film Festival was an annual film festival of short films hosted by Air Canada and its in-flight magazine enRoute. Films are shown as in-flight entertainment as well as screened theatrically in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Heather Young is a Canadian filmmaker based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
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.
Connor Gaston is a Canadian film director based in British Columbia, known for making films with religious themes.
Danny Ramadan is a Syrian–Canadian award-winning novelist, public speaker, and LGBTQ-refugee activist who was born in Damascus, Syria. Ramadan's work focuses on themes of immigration, identity, diaspora and belonging. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won multiple awards. Currently, Ramadan lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with his husband.
The 42nd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 7 to 17 September 2017. There were fourteen programmes, with the Vanguard and City to City programmes both being retired from previous years, with the total number of films down by 20% from the 2016 edition. Borg/McEnroe directed by Janus Metz Pedersen opened the festival.
Luk'Luk'I is a Canadian drama film, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. The feature directorial debut of Wayne Wapeemukwa, the film is an expansion of his earlier short film Luk'Luk'I: Mother, which premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.
Wayne Wapeemukwa is a Canadian film director and screenwriter of Métis descent from Vancouver, British Columbia. He is most noted for his feature film debut Luk'Luk'I (2017), which won the Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and the Directors Guild of Canada's Discovery Award.
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.
Gwaai Edenshaw is a Haida artist and filmmaker from Canada. Along with Helen Haig-Brown, he co-directed Edge of the Knife, the first Haida language feature film.
Kent Tate is a Canadian artist and filmmaker living in British Columbia. Tate is known for his single-channel video installation works.
Biidaaban is a Canadian animated short film, directed by Amanda Strong and released in 2018. Based on the writings of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, the film centres on Biidaaban, a young shapeshifter on a secret mission to revive the traditional First Nations ritual of harvesting sap from maple trees to make maple sugar, despite living in a contemporary urban area.
On the Corner is a Canadian drama film, directed by Nathaniel Geary produced by Wendy Hyman released in 2003. Set in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, the film stars Alex Rice and Simon Baker as Angel and Randy Henry, a brother and sister struggling with poverty and drug addiction.
Yellowhead is a Canadian short film, directed by Kevan Funk and released in 2013. The film stars Paul McGillion as an emotionally detached industrial safety inspector travelling to mining and natural resource sites along the Yellowhead Highway in rural Alberta and British Columbia while neglecting his own health.
