Thursday November 19, 7pm
DARC Loop, 2 Daly Ave. (1st floor)
Pay-what-you-can
Suggested admission $10
Co-presented by Digi60 Filmmakers’ Festival & uOttawa Cinema Club
Two veteran local filmmakers, Kristen McNaule and Penny McCann, will share their positive and negative experiences on the festival scene with youth, students and emerging Ottawa film directors of all ages, to help them grow and professionalize their careers. This discussion will provide practical advice on what to look for in a festival’s communications, social media presence and website before you click “submit.” Engage with and ask questions from award-winning artists who have screened films internationally and have taken part in screenwriting competitions and festival programming. Moderated by Christopher Rohde from Mirror Mountain Film Festival.
Kristen McNaule
Kristen McNaule is a writer and filmmaker from Ottawa who tells gritty revolutionary stories that shed light on mental illness and social justice. After working as a communications assistant for a Member of Parliament, she transitioned from politics to filmmaking. Her interest in International Development led her to Sierra Leone to direct and produce a documentary about post-conflict development. She is a winner of the Slamdance Film Festival script competition, a two time semifinalist in the Austin Film Festival script competition, and was named one of the 25 Killer Canadian Screenwriters to Watch by Killer Shorts. Her short films have been selected for festivals around the world, and have been broadcast on CBC. She is currently a programmer for the Oscar-qualifying Slamdance festival, and has served as a script reader for the Austin Film Festival.
Penny McCann
Penny McCann’s artistic practice spans three decades and encompasses narrative and experimental films. Her work has screened widely at festivals and galleries nationally and internationally. Festival screenings include the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Ann Arbor, Michigan), Hamburg Short Film Festival (Hamburg, Germany), IndieCork Film Festival (Cork, Ireland), Short Waves Festival (Poznan, Poland), Analogica (Bolzano, Italy), Arquiteturas Film Festival (Porto, Portugal), True/False Film Festival (Columbia, Missouri), Mimesis Documentary Festival (Boulder, Colorado), Experiments in Cinema (Albuquerque, New Mexico), and Fisura International Festival of Experimental Film & Video (Mexico City, Mexico), as well as numerous festivals in Canada including the International Film Festival Ottawa – IFFO, WNDX Festival (Winnipeg), Antimatter Media Art (Victoria), International Festival of Winter Cinema (Edmonton, AB), Halifax Independent Filmmakers’ Festival (Halifax, Nova Scotia), and Festival International du film sur l’art (Montréal).
Christopher Rohde
Christopher Rohde is a filmmaker, musician and curator from Ottawa. His video The Pink Ghosts (2006) was screened across Canada and was one of the first films selected for EnRoute, Air Canada’s in-flight film festival. Odd One Out (2014) was screened at festivals internationally and won awards for Best Film by an Emerging Filmmaker at the Jasper Short Film and Media Arts Festival and Best Director (Experimental) at the Ottawa Independent Video Awards. Christopher received his M.A. in Film Studies from Carleton University in 2007. He was a member of Available Light Screening Collective from 2006 – 2013, and Programmer at SAW Video Media Art Centre from 2010 – 2015, where he curated dozens of screenings, installations, exhibitions, performances and other projects. In 2014, he founded Mirror Mountain Film Festival, a platform for celebrating unique creative voices.