Jury

2012 : Guest Judge - Rob Stewart

Rob Stewart, born in Toronto, Canada, is an award-winning wildlife photographer and the director of Sharkwater.

Stewart began photographing underwater when he was 13. He became a certified scuba instructor trainer at age 18, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Western Ontario, and has studied Marine Biology and Zoology at universities in Kenya and Jamaica.

Stewart spent four years traveling the world as the chief photographer for the Canadian Wildlife Federation magazines, and has logged thousands of hours underwater, using the latest in rebreather and camera technologies.

His work underwater and on land has appeared in nearly every media form worldwide, from BBC Wildlife, Asian Diver, Outpost and GEO magazines to the Discovery Channels, ABC, BBC, night clubs and feature films.

www.sharkwater.com

2012 : Jury Members

Kathleen Mullen is the Director of Programming for Planet in Focus: International Environmental Film & Video Festival overseeing the various programs all year round. For over fourteen years she has programmed at film festivals internationally including the Toronto International Film Festival, as the Short Cuts Canada programmer, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Vancouver International Film Festival and Provincetown International Film Festival. For five years she was the director of programming at the Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival. She recently completed an MFA in Film Production from York University. Kathleen has directed several short films including you wash my skin with sunshine, Sleep Lines and Still Life with Butterfly. Her latest film is Breathtaking, a mid-length personal investigative documentary about the legacy and present-use of asbestos. She sits on the board of the Images Festival of Independent Film & Video and is a keen advocate of independent film and video-making and diverse discourses of local, national and international cinema.

Sharon Switzer is the Digital Content and Programming Curator for Pattison Onestop and the Director of Art for Commuters, which she founded in 2007 in response to an opportunity to showcase the work of artists and filmmakers to over 1.3 million people on the Onestop network of TTC subway platform screens. Her first curatorial collective, Clamorous Intentions, was active during the early ‘90’s, producing large-scale, multimedia public events in Toronto. Switzer is the also the Director of the Toronto Urban Film Festival, curator of Contacting Toronto, a month-long photo exhibition which part of CONTACT, and DRIFT a program for Nuit Blanche - all annual projects produced by Art for Commuters on the Onestop network of screens. Switzer holds an MFA from the University of Western Ontario, and is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab. She is presently serving as Vice President of the Board of Directors for the artist-run-centre Gallery TPW. As an instructor she has lectured at U.W.O, Brock University, and she continues to teach at OCAD University. Her artwork is represented by Corkin Gallery in Toronto.

2011 : Jury Members

Brenda Longfellow is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and film theorist. Her productions include Our Marilyn (1987), an experimental documentary on Canadian swimmer Marilyn Bell; the feature-length drama Gerda (1992), on the life and times of Gerda Munsinger; A Balkan Journey/Fragments From The Other Side of War (1996); the Genie Award-winning documentary Shadow Maker: Gwendolyn MacEwen, Poet (1998); and Tina in Mexico (2002), a feature documentary on the silent film star and avant-garde photographer Tina Modotti, which won Best Arts Program at the Yorkton Film Festival, Bronze at the Columbus Film Festival, and a Golden Rose at the Montreux Television Festival.

Associate Professor: Film Studies & Production, Department of Film, York University, Longfellow's most recent production, Weather Report (2008), is a feature-length television documentary that explores the effects of climate change on communities around the world. She is currently working on a series of musical shorts exploring the complex weave of delusion, dream and willful complicity that informs the evolution of the Tar Sands in Northern Alberta.

Dr. Longfellow has published numerous articles on feminist film theory and Canadian cinema in CineTracts, Screen, CineAction and the Journal of Canadian Film Studies. She is a co-editor of the recent anthology Gendering the Nation: Canadian Women Filmmakers.

Jed Goldberg, President of Earth Day Canada since 1992, is an expert in the areas of environmental protection and renewable energy, and has worked to promote the benefits of environmental action, services and products since the 1980s. In the 1980s, Jed served as the Principal of Teekah Environmental Products Ltd., an importer, distributor and retailer of natural, plant-based products, recycled paper, biological finishes, energy and water conservation products and solar energy devices. In 1992, he went on to lead Earth Day Canada. Since then, Earth Day Canada has developed from a small grassroots organization to one of Canada’s most respected and recognized environmental charities. The award-winning organization now engages over 6 000 000 Canadians each year through a suite of year–round education, action and recognition programs, and Earth Day activities and events. www.earthday.ca

Working within local communities, Jed founded OurPower and the West Toronto Initiative for Solar Energy, organizations dedicated to facilitating community-based bulk purchases of Solar PV and Solar Thermal devices. He also serves on the board of directors for The Clean Air Partnership and The Community Power Fund.

Jed lives in Toronto with his wife Sheila, who he spends many a night watching Canada’s premier film and television productions with.

Switzer holds an MFA from the University of Western Ontario, and is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab. She is presently serving as President of the Board of Directors for the artist-run-centre Gallery TPW. As an instructor she has lectured at U.W.O, Brock University, and she continues to teach at OCAD University. Her artwork is represented by Corkin Gallery in Toronto.

2010 : Jury Members

Jennifer Baichwal was born in Montréal, QC and grew up in Victoria, BC. She has been directing and producing documentaries for 14 years. Let it Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles, her first feature documentary, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1998 and won a 1999 International Emmy for Best Arts Documentary. The True Meaning of Pictures, a feature length film on the work of Appalachian photographer Shelby Lee Adams, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2002, and won a Gemini award for Best Arts Documentary in 2003. Manufactured Landscapes, a feature documentary about the work of artist Edward Burtynsky, was a co-production between Mercury Films, Foundry Films and the National Film Board, and was directed by Baichwal. It premiered at TIFF in September 2006, winning Best Canadian Feature Film, and has since received a number of other awards internationally. Act of God, a feature documentary on the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning, opened the Hot Docs Film Festival in 2009, and was subsequently released in Canada and the U.S. Baichwal is currently in development on Margaret Atwood’s Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth with the NFB and Ravida Din (Executive Producer, Quebec Production Centre). She is co-founder of Mercury Films Inc., and lives in Toronto with her husband, Nick de Pencier, and their two children. www.mercuryfilms.ca

Judy Gladstone was born in Montréal, QC. She has been the Executive Director of CTV’s Bravo!FACT (Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent) since 1997. Bravo!FACT (www.bravofact.com) was established in 1995 by the national cable arts channel Bravo!. The foundation is the largest funder of shorts and videos in Canada. Over 20 million dollars have been awarded in grants for the production of over 1,400 shorts across the country. The shorts are broadcast in Canada in a half-hour show in prime-time on Bravo! and A-Channels, and are often honoured at local, national and international film festivals. Ms. Gladstone curates screenings across Canada and abroad, and is often invited to speak at film, television and new media events. From 1993 to 1995, Ms. Gladstone was Coordinator of the CIDA-funded Canada Fund for Dialogue and Development, providing grants enabling Israelis and Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians, to work together on cultural and other projects. As Cultural Attaché at the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv from 1991-1993, Ms. Gladstone presented the best of the Canadian cultural scene to a foreign audience. Born in Montréal, Ms. Gladstone’s university education includes a B.A. (from Laval Université, Québec City, Québec), and two graduate degrees (from the Sorbonne, France and the University of Haifa, Israel). She lives in Toronto with her two children.

Sharon Switzer founded Art for Commuters in 2007 in response to an opportunity to showcase the work of artists and filmmakers to over 1.3 million people on the Onestop network of TTC subway platform screens. Her first curatorial collective, Clamorous Intentions, was active during the early ‘90’s, producing large-scale, multimedia public events in Toronto. Switzer is the also the Director of the Toronto Urban Film Festival, curator of Contacting Toronto, a month-long photo exhibition which part of CONTACT, and DRIFT a program for Nuit Blanche - all annual projects produced by Art for Commuters on the Onestop network of screens. Switzer holds an MFA from the University of Western Ontario, and is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab. She is presently serving as President of the Board of Directors for the artist-run-centre Gallery TPW. As an instructor she has lectured at U.W.O, Brock University, and she continues to teach at OCAD University.

Keith Treffry, Director of Communications for Earth Day Canada since 2007, is an unabashed movie enthusiast and closet film critic. In the early 90s, Keith helped start and manage an international travel magazine while juggling work as a communications consultant to the Government of Ontario. Soon after, he created Delphic Communications, a company that provided corporations and government with strategic planning, media outreach and marketing support. In the late 1990’s, Keith switched gears to the not-for-profit sector, first as a marketing strategist with a focus on community economic development (where he was the lead in securing two national and four regional awards for communication excellence) and later as the Marketing and Communications Manager for Evergreen, a national environmental organization with a focus on urban greening.