MICHÈLE HOZER
Director, Editor, Producer

Promise to the Dead picked up her first International Emmy nomination as an editor. But her directorial debut with Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould won the coveted spot on the Academy Award short list as well as a Gemini for Best Biography. Since its premiere at TIFF in 2009, the feature length documentary has been seen by audiences in Britain, Australia, Japan, and across North America.

In 2012, The Director’s Guild of Canada (DGC) awarded The Allan King Award for Excellence in Documentary to Michèle and team for West Wind: The Vision of Tom Thomson. At the same time, she picked up both the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival Editing Award and top honours from her peers at Canadian Cinema Editors.

Michèle just completed her first solo feature length documentary in the combined roles of director, editor, and producer for Sugar Coated probing the role of sugar in a global healthcare epidemic. The film, in association with TVO and ZDF/ARTE, had its world premiere at Hot Docs International Film Festival and has since toured internationally at film festivals and TV broadcasts. With the support of the Telus Fund, the film was accompanied by the very successful sugar tracker app titled One Sweet App. Sugar Coated was honoured with the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social and Political Documentary at the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards.

NOAH BINGHAM
Supervising Producer

Noah Bingham is a Toronto-based documentary producer with a passion for cinema that humanizes complex social issues. Noah brings proven results to all stages of production. He produced the documentary The Secret Trial 5 (Hot Docs Top Ten Audience Favourite Award 2014, Magnus Issacson Award 2014) which employed an innovative outreach campaign and hybrid-distribution strategy. Noah’s credits also include Production Manager and Outreach Coordinator for the feature documentary and interactive story The Ghosts In Our Machine (Bell Fund Recipient, Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary, Official Honoree at the 18th Annual Webby Award and Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund Recipient).

NAVA RASTAGAR
Associate Producer

Nava Rastegar provides support in all aspects of business affairs including financing and production planning. Since launching her career in film and television through the CMPA’s Screen Based Media Production Program, Nava has rapidly acquired the expertise to manage everything from funding applications, clearances, to interim financing, errors and omissions and corporate set up. With noted interest in documentaries and digital production, Nava’s knowledge has been valued by filmmakers interested in creative and marketing input. She earned a B.A and M.A in History at the University of Toronto and regularly undertakes new challenges, supporting independent producers on their projects to achieve creative and commercial success.

RUSSELL WALKER
Composer

Russ started his road to a career in music studying guitar and classical flute in the early 70’s. He worked as a recording engineer in the late 70’s, making records for bands, and gradually started doing audio post for video. Russ also played keyboards in several bands including New Regime, who were signed to RCA Records in the 1980’s.

Russ also studied harmony and composition at the Royal Conservatory from 1999-2001.
From 1994 to 2014 he owned and operated Kitchen Sync Digital Audio, specializing in mixing documentary films. His facility was one of the first in Canada to go completely tapeless. Russ has worked as sound supervisor or sound editor on many award-winning documentary films and drama series including Cracked, The Border, Shake Hands With the Devil, Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, Turning Points in History, The Nature of Things. He has also composed music for many television shows, including The Famine Within, Hitman Hart and Outlaw Bikers. Most recently he wrote the music for Sugar Coated which opened to sold out screens at Hot Docs 2015.

DARBY MACINNIS
Editor

Darby’s narrative work as a film editor has been celebrated internationally at film festivals worldwide as well as in his native Toronto at the Toronto International Film Festival, Reel Asian International Film Festival and the Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival. Notable film credits include Secret Trial 5 (2014), Banana Bruises (2007), Soap(2009) and Miklat (2013).

In the documentary sphere, Darby developed his craft working under one of Canada’s finest documentary film director/editors, Michèle Hozer. It was during these years that Darby refined his philosophical approach to post-production while learning the meticulous inner workings of the entire post-production process, working on some of Canada’s most widely distributed and recognized documentary films, such as Triage (2008), the Glenn Gould biography The Genius Within(2009), The Team (2010), The West Wind (2011) and Fight Like Soldiers, Die Like Children (2013), all produced by the award-winning production company White Pine Pictures.