Canadian Film Centre Sends Moviemakers to Tribeca Film Festival

by Carla Pisarro | Published March 25, 2008

The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) will send two Canadian production teams to New York next month to participate in Tribeca All Access (TAA), a six-day event hosted by the Tribeca Film Festival. This year will be the first that TAA has included international delegates in the event, with representatives from the UK Film Council and the Australian Film Commission to attend in addition to the CFC’s participants.

TAA, to take place this year from April 21-26, provides workshops and networking opportunities for moviemakers from traditionally underrepresented communities. With 37 new projects showing, this year’s TAA showcase will be the festival’s largest ever.

Canada’s representatives will include writer Shannon Masters and producer Jennifer Podemski, the team behind Sight Unseen, an aboriginal coming-of-age story, and producer Larisa Andrews and director Claudia Molina, who’ll bring their film Red Velvet Girls, a love story about a teenage lesbian vampire. Podemski and Molina are both alums of CFC, Canada’s largest institution for advanced film training.

“We are thrilled to work as the Canadian collaborator in support of this unparalleled training opportunity offered by Tribeca All Access, a key initiative for the CFC in continuing to nurture and promote Canada’s cross-cultural voices and ideas nationwide and raise the U.S. visibility of some of Canada’s most creative talent, “ says CFC executive director Slawko Klymkiw. “Along with providing their highly original works an opportunity to connect with new audiences and industry professionals, this initiative helps forge relationships at the international level—resulting in both national and global audiences gaining a greater appreciation of our stories.”

Canada will also be represented at the Tribeca Film Festival by the short film Song of Slomon, an entry in the festival’s Short Film Competition.

For more information, visit http://www.cfccreates.com/ or http://www.tribecafilminstitute.org/taa/.