Our Alumni

Abdullah Qureshi is a Pakistani born artist, educator, and cultural producer. Within his practice, he is interested in using painting, filmmaking, and methodologies of collaboration and organization to address personal histories, traumatic pasts, and sexuality. Through his on-going doctoral project, entitled Mythological Migrations: Imagining Queer Muslim Utopias, he examines formations of queer identity and resistance in Muslim migratory contexts. In 2017, Qureshi received the Art and International Cooperation fellowship at Zurich University of the Arts, and in 2018, a research fellowship at the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, Boston. In 2019, he joined the Center for Feminist Research, York University, Toronto as a visiting graduate student, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Aalto University in Finland. Website: www.abdullahqureshi.org

Adam Cook earned his BA at UBC as an Outstanding Graduate in 2014 where he was the inaugural recipient of the Mark Harris Memorial Scholarship in Film Studies. His film criticism has been published in numerous outlets and his current writing can be found on his Substack journal, Long Voyage Home. Adam has worked on the programming teams of various film festivals, including VIFF, TIFF, and Hot Docs. His scholarly interests include textual analysis, aesthetics, ontology, phenomenology, and videographic approaches to theory and criticism. Adam’s current project explores temporality and heightened embodiment in the work of Tsai Ming-liang.

Since successfully completing his MFA back in September 2018, Adrien Benson been submitting his thesis film to film festivals in the hopes of getting it in front of as many audience members as possible. He’s begun work on a feature film version of his thesis, which he intends to shoot in the coming year or two. Furthermore, Adrien’s in the process of applying for work in the film industry in whatever capacity that allows him to be creative. He says: “While I’ve only just started my journey, I honestly feel like the MFA program gave me the tools and confidence necessary to launch my career in this business of show.”

Amit Brewer (MFA 2018) is currently enrolled in the Doctoral programs for Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queens U.

In 2014, Caitlin Fryers became the first Canadian to win the Sir Peter Ustinov Award from the International Emmys for her pilot script, Fealty. She is now represented by Meridian Artists.

Catherine Mondragon–MFA Film–lives in Edmonton, Alberta with a production company as a script writer, currently co-producing a film project about a hempery in Alberta and the influence of the Ringing Cedars of Russia. Since graduating she’s taught film at Sheridan College and worked in social media, utilizing her MFA in film production to introduce students to ethnographic filmmaking. Writing and posting led to the role that she now occupies, getting paid full-time, to write all day.

Chelsea McMullan is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, best known for her 2013 film My Prairie Home, a film about transgender musician Rae Spoon.

Since graduating in 2010 Coral Aiken has been a working producer in Toronto and started her own company 5 years ago, Aiken Heart Films, to develop their own slate as a creative producer which have screened in Cannes Cinefondation, at TIFF, and all over the world. Coral completing post on their first international co-production by director Valerie Buhagiar, and continues to participate in the community, teaching at LIFT where Coral was the previous Education Coordinator. aikenheartfilms.com.

David Ridgen CBC radio show “Someone Knows Something” is currently being adapted for TV.

Francisca Duran is a Chilean Canadian experimental media artist who creates films, video installation, and 2D, photo-based, mixed-media works about history, memory and violence. Duran has exhibited internationally at film festivals and venues including Edinburgh International Film Festival, International Film Festival at Rotterdam, HotDocs, Arkipel, Images Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Forum, John Hansard Gallery and Gallery 44. franciduran.artFranci writes: “The York MFA program was crucial to my media art practice. I applied as a way of returning to practice in my mid-30’s after having two kids and while running a full-service graphic design studio. I graduated in 2007 and continue to make experimental works that have screened in festivals and galleries nationally and internationally.”

Irene Bindi is a Winnipeg-based multidisciplinary artist and film programmer with an interest in experimental film. Her work has exhibited and screened at various galleries and festivals across Canada and in the U.S. She is an editor at ARP Books and holds an MA in Film and Video from York University.

Jacqueline Ristola is a PhD candidate in Film and Moving Image Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. She received her master’s degree in Cinema and Media studies from York University in 2017, where she also received a Graduate Diploma in Asian Studies from the York Centre for Asian Research. Her research areas include animation/anime studies, media industry studies, and queer theory. Her work is published in Animation Studies Online Journal, where she was awarded the inaugural Maureen Furniss Student Essay Award. She is currently a co-editor of a forthcoming issue on LGBTQ Animation for Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies, and also has a forthcoming chapter in the edited collection Representation in Steven Universe (Palgrave 2020).

Born with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, James Dunnison naturally ended up in the film industry. Dunnison’s feature debut Stuff enjoyed international critical acclaim. He also directed the TV pilot and six additional episodes of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, 14 episodes of HBO Canada’s critical darling Less Than Kind and eight episodes of the SyFy/Space series Bitten. Among his other TV credits are episodes of Carter, The Listener, Lost Girl, Seed, Arctic Air, Blood Ties, Whistler, Godiva’s and Robson Arms. Known for his positive on-set energy and for getting the best out of cast and crew alike, Dunnison has received numerous awards and nominations for directing both comedy and drama. As a creator, he currently has three TV series in development. He speaks fluent French, and his travelwriting and photography have appeared in a variety of publications, from specialty magazines to the Los Angeles Times.

Jeff Watson (MFA Film) is an award winning artist, designer, and Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Games at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. His work investigates how game design, pervasive computing, and social media can enable new forms of storytelling, participation, and learning. He is a Director at the Situation Lab, a design research laboratory cross-sited at USC and OCAD University, and is an associate faculty member at the USC Game Innovation Lab.

Jennifer Dysart is the new Artist-In-Residence at Library and Archives Canada with the Archive/Counter-Archive SSHRC program at York University. She will produce a new film by February 2020. counterarchive.ca/air-lac-announcement-2019. Jennifer also finished a film commission for Regent Park program this past year: homemadevisible.ca/, homemadevisible.ca/about/artists/. That film is called Caribou in the Archive, touring festivals now including Germany through the program Kurzfilme Home and Native Land: www.canadanow.de/tour-dates/.

Since graduation, Kathleen Mullen has written and directed the short films you wash my skin with sunshine, Sleep Lines, and Still Life with Butterfly. Her award-winning mid-length documentary Breathtaking screened internationally and won the Audience Award at the Canadian Labour International Film Festival. She recently completed Button OUT!, a stop-motion animation based on the collection of buttons at the The ArQuives: Canada’s LGTBQ2+ Archives, completed the 7-month Cultural Leadership program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and also working on contracts at festivals.

Kim Barr (kimbarr.com) writes: “My MFA thesis film A LATE THAW (2015) premiered at the Calgary Film Festival, screened at festivals, won awards at the Vancouver Island Short Film Festival and received great reviews. In 2016, I received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to write a feature length screenplay Blestemat (Cursed) which included travelling to Romania for research. Doing the MFA program made me a better screenwriter and filmmaker. The MFA itself helps for applying for other jobs in the industry.”

Kurt Walker is an experimental filmmaker from Vancouver, Canada. He makes movies concerned with place, experience, and connection.

Laura Gladwell is an “emerging” writer, filmmaker and musician from Toronto. After a prolonged stint in Europe, performing her own songs, singing backup for a German cult figure you’ve never heard of, and teaching English to toddlers, she returned home to pursue a career in screenwriting. So far, Laura’s works for the screen include the short comedies Brunchophobia, Young Love and The Vacation. She is currently developing a dramedy series inspired by her experience of moving back in with her parents as a married adult, and shopping around her feature screenplay, Ich bin Jim—the urgent tale of a German dubbing actor who switches bodies with Jim Carrey.

Leena Manimekalai is a poet and an independent filmmaker. Known for ‘Sengadal/The Deadsea’ (Cinema Verite, 2011) on Tamil refugees, ‘Is it too much to ask’ (mockumentary, 2017) on Transgender rights, ‘White Van Stories (docu-feature, 2013) on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka, ‘Goddesses’ (documentary, 2009) on gender justice, her award winning films across genres and lengths have been widely screened in about hundred prestigious international film festivals. Leena is a recipient of Charles Wallace Art Award, the EU Fellowship and the Commonwealth Fellowship for her work in Cinema and Gender. She has published five poetry collections and is currently editing her non-fiction feature ‘Rape Nation’ that traces the lives and struggles of rape survivors across the Indian Subcontinent. ‘Maadathy – an unfairy tale’, her recent fiction feature on invisible lives if members of the Dalit caste, has started its journey at 24th Busan International Film Festival with a follow up of good selection of festival selections and awards. Her thesis will be on radical love.

Marnie Parrell is a Métis filmmaker, writer, artist and maker. In addition to receiving several awards, grants and fellowships her films and videos have screened at festivals, galleries and events from Dawson City, Yukon to Melbourne, Australia. Parrell’s work in wearable electronics, traditional crafts and found objects/art continues her interest in bridging the gaps between high and low tech. Parrell’s films are available through V tape. marnieparrell.com

Mary J. Daniel completed her MFA at York University in 2006. Pieces of her recent anthology of short poetic films and videos, Pictures of Things That Aren’t There, were featured in curated programs at the Kassel Documentary Festival and the Anthology Film Archives in New York City.

Maya Vukov graduated from York University with a BFA in Film Production in 2020. She is interested in narrative fictional storytelling, currently working on making short films. She likes films that are very character-driven, psychologically intimate and provocative.

Meelad Moaphi’s thesis film Worth just picked up the Air Canada Best Short Film award at the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival and Best Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography in the Canadian shorts category at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. One film—two festivals—four awards.

Morgan Fics short drama TICK TOCK (2018) screened as LA Shorts, Awareness Festival, Toronto Shorts International Film Festival, Workers Unite Film Festival, Canada Shorts, winning awards in Toronto at Canada Shorts. His FINDING THE RESTORATIVE NARRATIVE (2015) is part of Amnon Buchbinder’s interactive website Biology of Story (www.biologyofstory.com)

Nicolás Pereda (MFA, 2007) is a Mexican-Canadian film director. To date, he has directed nine features and three short films.

Pranay Noel is a narrative filmmaker with a BFA in Film Production from York University. His works are realistic character-driven drama/comedies often centred around coming of age stories. Born in Mumbai, raised in Mississauga, identity and legacy are key themes in his MFA thesis work. He is inspired by the work of Kenneth Lonergan, John Cassettes, Lars Von Trier and the Dardennes. He has a low-budget, improvisational shooting sensibility and loves camcorders.

In 2013 Raha Shirazi moved to Italy, to make a short film which premiered at TIFF 2014. She opened a production company under the name of Doppio Nodo Double bind with director Michelangelo Frammartino, and producer Marco Serrecchia. Raha’s finished filming their first project as a company just two weeks ago, which is Michelangelo’s third feature film, a co-production between Italy, France and Germany as the executive producer on this project and is also developing her own feature film.

After graduating in 2015, Rainer Bello worked with Amnon Buchbinder on the interactive website, Biology of Story. Reiner’s now with York’s AMPD computing, assisting with video production for e-learning.

Sibel Guvenc, MFA 2019, director, writer, producer at Kybele Films started submitting her finished masters thesis film “End of the Rope” to festivals. Her psychological thriller drama feature, Eyes of Dreams, was selected to 2019 Female Eye Film Festival Live Pitch. She is currently writing an environmentalist drama feature, working title “Loya”, and developing a children’s web series, “Volt Town–Tech Bites”.

Slavica Ceperkovic is an artist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. Her contemporary art works have been shown in major museums including Palais de Tokyo, and Grand Palais in Paris. Her PhD research work is in volumetric video and virtual reality. Slavica holds a BFA in New Media from Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts, a MFA from Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, and a MDes in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University. Slavica currently teaches at Seneca College in the School of Media. (slavica.ca)

Alumni Tess Girard is a Historica Canada collaborator for Heritage Minutes, in community consultation, historical research, and concept development.

Grad Film MFA alum Tracy German is a Haudenosaunee / Dakota filmmaker and Producer/Director/Writer on Wild Archeology—the first series to be versioned to the Dakota language.

At York, Vladimir Paskaljevic made short feature that won a TFCA award, Absence Is Present (2015) and Thesis Award. After York, he taught film production-related courses at University of New Brunswick, Toronto Film School, Lakehead University and York University (Screenwriting and Editing + Intro to Production) as well as Screenwriting at WLU.

Vladimir is making a documentary on revisionism and negationism of the Holocaust and its consequences for society in Eastern Europe, particularly ex-Yugoslavian states, and developing a feature screenplay on Jasenovac concentration camp based on several memoir books.

Born and raised in Toronto, Zachary Goldkind is a filmmaker, festival programmer and burgeoning scholar. He holds a BFA in Screenwriting and is pursuing his MFA with the intention of practicing experimental/narrative synthesizing. Structuralism, and its rhythmic tonality, influences this methodology most of all. Further, Zac’s studies directs him down a trajectory of subjects including: Cultural Imperialism, Image Historicity, Aesthetic Theory, as well as Marxism—that’s heterogeneous, materialist qualities allow for formalism to be a study not only of affect and semiotics, but systemics, too. Images excite him, his favourite colour is a hot pink, and he hopes to god that other people might be interested in all this, too.

Zdravko Jovanovic has been working in theaters, mostly in Europe, and writing. He’s also been teaching film and video, as well as Art, Art History, and Film Studies around the Globe. Currently he is focused on traveling, networking, working on various projects. At the moment, Netflix has approached him to do a 12-episode series based on Zodiac signs.