Team Members
Steve Rosenberg
Founder & Program Director
Steve Rosenberg is an award winning writer/director based in Vancouver, BC. His dramatic shorts, Corona Station, Watching Mrs.Pomerantz, Vannica, Divine Waters and Shanti Baba Ram and the Dancers of Hope have screened at various prestigious festivals around the world.
In 2000, Watching Mrs. Pomerantz earned him numerous international awards, including the award for Best Director at The Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival. His films have played on The Sundance Channel, CBC, WTV and Bravo. He is an alumni of The Canadian Film Centre, Canada’s most prestigious film institution. In past, he taught at the Vancouver Film School and the Environmental Youth Alliance. In 2006, hosted and produced Blink, a weekly TV talk show devoted to obscure films that come and go in a blink. He freelances as a videographer/editor with many of his entertainment story segments being broadcast on ShawTV in Vancouver. Currently, Steve has both a feature drama and documentary project in development.
Michaelin McDermott
An eclectic career that encompasses photographer to director, Michaelin’s most recent writer, director and producer credits include the drama REPLAY which premiered at the LA Femme Festival and won an Accolade Film award, and LIGHT: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE – a two-part documentary mini-series shot in HD for Discovery Channel, Canada. LIGHT was nominated for a Leo Award as best documentary and has international distribution.
Michaelin has over a decade’s experience as a film and TV unit photographer and for four years was a producer at The Discovery Channel where she created the natural history pilot ANIMAL TRACKS as well as a series of science based shorts. Currently, she is developing a feature documentary and story editing a feature. Her feature length screenplay PYRAMIDS has won a Praxis fellowship, The Female Eye Film Festival screenwriting award and was runner up the following year in “the good-to-go” Female Eye Film Festival.
Michaelin was a 2006/07 participant in the Banff Centre’s Women in the Director’s Chair and serves on the BC board of the Documentary Organization of Canada as well as being National Co-Vice Chair. Other volunteer work include being a member of the 2008 Banff Television Festival Documentary Jury, a Script Reader for CBC’s Signature Shorts and the Alibi Reading Series as well as a mentor at the Vancouver Film School.
(www.bedazzledpics.com)
Kryshan Randel
Born and raised in BC, Kryshan Randel has been making and watching films for as long as he can remember. He has directed many award winning short films, including JACK which screened at many of the world's top genre festivals including Sitges, CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival and Fantasia where it won the Silver Audience Choice Award; and was listed by The Shorts Report of one of the best Canadian short films of 2010. Another successful short film GLIMPSE, produced as part of the Directors Guild of Canada / BC Film Kick Start program, premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival and subsequently won the National Screen Institute's A & E Short Filmmakers Award. Randel is also the creator and producer of the Vancouver-based fast film events The 24 Hour Film Contest and The Great Canadian Commercial Contest; and was Associate Producer of the city's premier short film-related event Crazy8s.
Currently, Kryshan is writing a feature screenplay and directing a variety of projects. More information, and many of his films, can be viewed at www.kryshanrandel.com.
Julia Ivanova
Julia Ivanova is an award-winning Vancouver documentary filmmaker, whose latest film, “Family Portrait in Black and White”, won at Hot Docs 2011 as the Best Canadian Feature, played at Sundance and was nominated for Genie Award. She grew up in Moscow, studied filmmaking at the Russian Film Institute (VGIK) and immigrated to Canada in mid nineties. Since then, she has been directing, editing and filming documentaries. She has made a number of intimate films on the topics of love, adoption, cultural differences and family, partnering with CBC, Global TV, Knowledge Network, PBS and Discovery. Ivanova has been actively involved in the documentary filmmaking community by organizing professional development workshops for DOC BC, co-chairing DOC BC, being on the Board of Hot Docs Festival and mentoring emerging filmmakers through “Giving Voice” DOC program. Being a director/editor/cinematographer and an avid fan of international documentaries, she believes in the emotional power of visual storytelling and poetic cinema.
www.interfilm.ca
Ileana Pietrobruno
Ileana Pietrobruno is an editor with extensive experience in feature-length documentaries and dramas. She has cut films for the National Film Board of Canada (This Land, River of Life, Between The Laughter, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, In Other Words, Pocket Desert, Sticks And Stones, Surviving Death) and has also edited for producers such as Jayme Pfahl, Prem Gill, Evan Adams, Desiree Lim and Shan Tam. These films have won awards and screened at hundreds of festivals, including the Berlin International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Pietrobruno’s editing credits include a range of styles: cinéma vérité, direct cinema, docudrama, personal narrative, cinematic essay, animated documentary, educational, promotional, mockumentary, comedy, adventure and horror. She believes that an editor’s greatest asset is the ability to listen to the material; to utilize the grammar of film as a platform that allows the film to speak for itself. Her editing work has been described as seamless, innovative, humourous, intelligent and provocative.
(pietrobruno.wordpress.com)
Steven Miko Burns
Steven is a Vancouver based Cinematographer with over 23 years of experience in the field of international film and television production.
He has received recognition for his work documenting the underbelly of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in the award-winning film “Stolen Lives – Children in the Sex Trade” and was the recipient of the 2000 Leo Award for Best Documentary Cinematography.
Recent credits include additional photography for the German produced documentary ,“His Holiness the Dalai Lama”, the “Power Project”, an indepth look at the lives of multi-barriered and at risk youth striving to make a better life for themselves through the means of performance art and musical theater, “Make Some Noise”, a documentary television series showcasing Canadian youth working to make a difference in the world, “Remedy Me!”, a 13 part documentary series on alternative medicine and “Conviction Kitchen” an observational documentary television series following ex-cons as they attempt to become restauranteurs under the expert tutelage of Executive Chef Marc Thuet and his wife and business partner Biana Zorich.
Constantly aspiring to do great work and tell important stories are the fuel for Steven’s passion and commitment to filmmaking and cinematography.
Josh Hite
Josh Hite's video and photo work is primarily concerned with human movement through local spaces. He is inspired by the potential for the creation of subjective pathways and the myriad results that occur when movers decidedly confront obstacles. Recent work focuses on the technological alteration of action and memory in backyard behavior. He has collaborated on site-specific projects, dance and sound performances, work in public space, and teaches at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Greg Ng
Greg Ng is a film editor from Vancouver, B.C. He is an alumnus of the UBC Film Program and the Canadian Film Centre. He has cut an astonishing number of shorts and seven feature films, including
Stephen Gillis' documentary This Wrestling Life and Simon Davidson's high school murder-mystery The Odds. Most recently, Greg has finished working with director Aaron Houston on the hilarious mockumentary feature, SUNFLOWER HOUR, which won the Independent Camera Award at KVIFF 2011.
