Social media and the art of paying attention. — “In the future we will photograph everything and look at nothing.” That was the headline of a New Yorker article published earlier this month. Like all headlines, it’s designed to capture your attention and make you react. Headlines 101. Needless to say, it got our attention here in the studio…

“It’s very fun to shatter expectations of women on screen and in stories. It’s very important too.” — I always gravitate toward coming-of-age stories. There’s something so… longing about them. First loves, figuring yourself out, endings and beginnings. I may be in my thirties but I still see myself in the young peoples’ stories I watch play out on screen or read in books. So when I saw…

“Feminism drives my filmmaking because up until recently, we’ve only seen a specific type of womxn and I want to normalize the stuff that you don’t often see, like gals pooping.” — Welcome to day… 100 and something?… of quarantine and working from home. If you too have lost all concept of time and are tired of scrolling endlessly through Netflix selections, have I got just the thing for you. The webseries Sofa Queens! It’s a Toronto-based show created and produced by…

“It’s a complex story and relationship, so I want the audience to feel the spectrum of human emotion.” — There’s nothing more exciting to me then getting to see a film go from it’s idea phase to the finished product, ready to be shown to the world. Do I feel like a proud mom? Not really, because I’ve done literally none of the work. …

“It was important for me to make this because it was an opportunity for me to trust and believe in myself, professionally and personally.” — TW: sexual assault As soon as I finished watching Melissa Stephens and Leslye Headland’s Travis, I immediately started it over and watched it a second time. The first watch was all emotion: apprehension, rage, heartbreak, exhaustion, relief. A man, Jeremiah, is meeting up with a woman, Brie, for coffee but…

“It is not the method or the medium, but rather the process that allows me to transcend beyond this pain that is caused by discrimination, social injustice and so on.” — Leila, a widow, works tirelessly to try to make ends meet and provide for her 12-year-old son, Amir. She is being pursued by a man who could be the answer to all of her financial struggles. The catch: he has a young daughter and tradition dictates that Amir could not…

“I wanted to create a character trapped by her own demons but who was able to confront them. A sort of superhero who could both inspires us with her firmness and courage, aggravate us with her bad temper but who could also touch us with her fragility and vulnerability.” — Storytelling tropes truly know no bounds but when it comes to women, we surely carry the weight of the worst of them. Women in stories seem to exist on a binary: they’re either good or bad and nothing in between. …

“We are taught that heroes wear capes or uniforms but the heroes that I’m interested are found in the most unlikely places.” — There’s nothing better than a film that washes over you and slowly reveals itself as it unfolds. You can’t help but become fully absorbed in the characters, the plot, the setting. This is exactly what happens when you watch Karen Chapman’s MEASURE. Despite being only nine minutes in length it…

“Feminism is important to my filmmaking because our stories matter and stories about our lives and our health and our bodies and our relationships matter.” — It’s one thing to decide you’re ready—financially, emotionally, mentally—to start a family but something we don’t talk about enough is when you’re ready but your body isn’t. What happens when you want a baby but your body is all “nahhhhhhhhhhh”?