Cam Bennett
Program Manager
Cam is a writer / director based in Winnipeg.
He was previously executive producer for MTS TV (Bell MTS) Stories From Home. His work has been broadcast on APTN, CBC, CTV, Global, Discovery, Life Network, History UK and The SciFi Network. Cam is currently senior story editor on the series, Ice Vikings.
Danielle Sturk
Mentor
Danielle Sturk is an award-winning bilingual writer / director whose audacity, creative vision and versatility has driven her work across genres since 2004.
With a BA in film from the University of Winnipeg, she has directed over 58 hours of nationally broadcast content in drama series, documentary series and features, as well as short experimental works and variety specials.
Previously a professional dancer and choreographer, Danielle has received over 30 arts council awards in film and dance. She won two Yorkton Film Festival Golden Sheaf Awards for best experimental film and best director (non-fiction), was nominated for a 2020 DGC Allan King Award for Excellence in Documentary for her hybrid documentary El Toro and was a recipient of the Manitoba Film Hothouse Award for Creative Development in 2020.
She is currently in development on a six-part, one-hour dramatic series she is writing and directing with Radio-Canada, and is in pre-production for a documentary with the National Film Board.
Danielle is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada, la Société des auteurs de radio, television et cinema, le Front des réalisateurs indépendants du Canada and On Screen Manitoba.
Elise Swerhone
STORYHIVE mentor
Mentoring:
The Language of the North (Fort St. James, BC)
Welcome to Pagliacci’s (Victoria, BC)
Elise Swerhone is an award-winning producer, director and writer. She has written, directed and edited episodes for all five seasons of the Gemini-winning series Recreating Eden. She recently retired as manager of programs and development at the National Screen Institute, a position she held for nearly 10 years.
Elise’s documentaries include Mysteries of the Deep (part of the award-winning series, One Ocean, which aired on CBC, Discovery US and National Geographic), Surviving The Teenage Brain, Ballet High, Ballet Girls, The Science of the Senses: Hearing, The Pill and Drug Deals for CBC’s The Nature of Things.
She also directed Restitution and Me, My Brother and My Father’s Van Gogh for CBC’s Witness. TuTu Much, a theatrical feature documentary she directed about aspiring ballerinas, won awards in China and Chicago. It was released theatrically in Canada and around the world including the Cannes Film Festival as part of Telefilm’s Showcase on Canada.
Leona Krahn
Mentor
Leona Krahn is a Winnipeg filmmaker whose award-winning body of work spans over 20 years.
Her films (documentary and narrative short) have screened on documentary Channel, CBC Newsworld, CBC News: The National, CTV, Bell MTS and on networks including Poland, Hong Kong.
Festival showings include the Socially Relevant Film Festival New York, Harlem International Film Festival, New Haven Documentary Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival and Festival Mental – Mental Health Arts and Film Festival in Portugal to name a few.
She strives to create meaningful, affecting and entertaining programs that will long be remembered. Her memberships include the Canadian Screen Academy and DGC, and she is currently a 2022 Banff Sparks Fellow.
Rebecca Gibson
Mentor
As a writer, director, producer, series creator, story editor and actor, Rebecca’s work in documentary, drama and comedy has played in festivals, theatres and on TV screens around the world.
Following graduation from the New York Film Academy, a Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) International Internship took Rebecca to Los Angeles at the start of her film career. Credits include her ACTRA Award-winning role in The Pinkertons (Netflix); her Blizzard Award-winning role in the film that launched the series The Murdoch Mysteries; co-writing and producing the award-winning feature H&G; serving as co-creator, executive producer, showrunner, writer and director for four seasons of the series Taken, for which she won a Beyond Borders Media Award and was nominated for three Canadian Screen Awards; and writing, directing and producing the award-winning shorts Hard Way Girl and don’t loiter on the way, which played festivals around the world.
Formerly a partner and head of development for Eagle Vision during the most productive period in its 20+ year history, and current co-owner, Rebecca continues to work with Eagle Vision to develop feature and series projects around the world, including her own.
With her partners, she shared in the 2022 Banff World Media Festival’s Innovative Producer Award. Rebecca was part of the Eagle Vision team who were honoured as finalists for five international Shorty Awards (the best of the world’s social media), winning gold distinction for two. Formerly one of western Canada’s top casting directors, Rebecca also oversees casting for many of Eagle Vision’s projects.
Recently, Rebecca wrote, directed and shared show running duties with Dinae Robinson for Snapchat’s first Canadian original series. She is also producing the soon-to-be released feature films Diaspora (world premiere Festival du Nouveau Cinema in October, 2022), Finality of Dusk (in post-production) and executive produced the feature documentary Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On (opening night of Toronto International Film Festival 2022) and the feature documentary True Story for History Channel and Global (world premiere September 30, 2022).
Other projects released in 2022 include the factual series 7th Gen (co-creator, executive producer, showrunner, writer, director – renewed for season two) and the hit comedy web series DJ Burnt Bannock (executive producer, showrunner, director).
Rebecca is devoted to mentorship, working with the Women in Film and Television (WIFT) Toronto and Vancouver, the Canadian Media Producers Association, Women in the Director’s Chair, ACTRA, WIFT, among several other local and national organizations to support equity, diversity, accessibility and inclusion.
She is a frequent moderator and guest speaker at industry panels around the country. She has been an acting coach for over two decades – on film and television sets and as a teacher to thousands of performers.
In 2015, Rebecca founded Orange Daisy Project, a social action campaign in support of mental health for teen girls. She was honoured nationally as a CAMH Difference Maker and was ACTRA Manitoba’s 2018 Woman of the Year. Her true passion is supporting others to follow their passion and connecting them with opportunities to do so.
Shereen Jerrett
Mentor
Shereen Jerrett is a producer, director and writer who has directed a variety of award-winning documentaries, short dramas, TV series and commercials.
In recent years, Shereen has worked as the showrunner for In Plain Sight, a Discovery ID (US) series and the fourth season of Animal Planets’ Dr. Keri, Prairie Vet; overseeing 52 episodes of the anterior program and 10 of the latter.
As a producer, Shereen has worked on Polar Bear Town, a Smithsonian series. In addition to her time as story editor for numerous dramatic and feature films, she has served as a faculty member with the National Screen Institute on NSI Drama Prize and NSI Script to Screen.
Shereen is an accomplished academic, having taught at both the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg for over two decades. She continues to grow academically as she participates in cross-country workshops and seminars hosted by world-renowned organizations such as the American Film Institute, Columbia University, Banff Centre and the Canadian Film Centre.
She is currently in early pre-production of Cub Camp, a Love Nature episode.
Meet the students
Alice Teufack
Grand Frère (Winnipeg, MB)
Grand Frère is a documentary about André Doumbé, a Cameroonian refugee and Franco-Manitoban. He was one of the first African and Cameroonians to settle in the province. Over the course of his life, he led many initiatives that assisted members of his community and acted as a communal big brother.
Alice strives to build her career as an independent film producer.
She is a native French-speaker and is currently an associate producer in the newsroom of Radio-Canada. Alice received a business administration degree from the University of Montreal and a film studies degree from the University of Manitoba.
Alice has a strong creative and artistic curiosity, especially around documentaries exploring the human condition.
Alice arrived in Manitoba in 2009 with the anticipation of a two-year stay. After over 13 years in Winnipeg, she believes the warmth of the community was the main factor that made Winnipeg her family’s home.
Carolyn Gray
Escape! (Winnipeg, MB)
Escape! is a drama set in the 1980s about an unlikely duo, Dean and Phil, who create a bond. Dean, a cancer survivor and magician, supports Phil as he struggles with his own illness. The two embark on a journey to find real magic.
Carolyn Minnie Gray is published in drama, fiction and creative non-fiction, including the biography, Dean Gunnarson: The Making of an Escape Artist (Great Plains Publications).
In the past few years, she has focused on screenwriting and true crime television. She won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer and the Manitoba Day Award for Excellence in Archival Research for her plays.
Other credits include sessional instructor of creative writing at Brandon University, 2019-2020 Winnipeg Public Library Writer-in-Residence, editor at the literary magazine Prairie Fire and an MFA in writing from the University of Saskatchewan.
Faustina Dalmacio
After School (Winnipeg, MB)
After School is a drama about young sisters who are newcomers to Canada who, due to the long hours their parents work, often end up alone after school. During this time, they explore Winnipeg’s downtown area, despite their parents’ instructions to go straight home.
Faustina Dalmacio is a 27 year-old first generation immigrant living in Canada. Her family moved to Winnipeg when she was 11 years old and have lived here ever since.
She currently works in healthcare as a pharmacist however, she’s always had a passion for film and art and hopes to grow as a filmmaker. She hopes to be capable of expressing herself through film and share her stories in an effective manner.
One of Faustina’s favorite hobbies is acrylic painting. Her subjects include landscapes, scenery, flowers, waves and portraits. Some of her artwork can be viewed on her Instagram art portfolio, @faustinadraws.
Faustina considers herself a creative person who loves to see light and colour all around. She hopes she can translate this through film, and looks forward to learning more about the filmmaking process.
Hilary McDonald
We Haven’t Yet Said Thanks (Flin Flon, MB)
We Haven’t Yet Said Thanks is an experimental film documenting contemporary dance work performed by First Nations artist Kristy Janvier in her explorations of landscape remediation, motherhood and home.
Hilary has been combining field archaeology and heritage documentation with a sense of adventure – working and living across western Canada and on projects throughout the Middle East.
Educated in archaeology, classics, visual art, material culture and international museums, she started working with different cameras in 2002. Originally trained on film, she’s used high-end digital systems all the way down to making her own cardboard pinhole boxes to record suntrails.
By way of travel, she works diligently, often solving technical problems by thinking outside the box. She often creates magic from very little and believes in the concept of desenrascanço – ‘getting oneself out of problems using available means.’
She often explores different concepts of time, occupation and beauty using long exposure. She also believes the content and the message are the most important details within any storytelling project, no matter the medium.
She was born and raised in Flin Flon and has returned to the north since the pandemic began. She can be found out on the water, on the ski trails or exploring the local histories of others who make marks – or who have left traces behind.
Jessica Landry
Testament (Winnipeg, MB)
Testament follows a 30 year-old woman who’s unsure what to do with her life, in the process of dealing with her grandmother’s estate. She rediscovers her grandmother – and as a result, herself – after inheriting an old bible and reading the notes left by her grandmother.
Screenwriter, director and Bram Stoker Award-winning author Jessica Landry is an alumna of the National Screen Institute, Canadian Film Centre and the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Series Accelerator program.
She’s currently adapting the novel April Raintree as a limited series, recently signed a two-picture development deal with Vortex Productions and is working on the docuseries True Story which aired on History and Global for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, among other projects.
Program Partners
