Frances-Anne Solomon (Legacy) is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and producer with a career spanning over 30 years.

She is the founder of CaribbeanTales, an organization that produces, markets, and distributes Caribbean-themed films.

She was also the recipient of the 2018 Visionary Award from the ReelWorld Film Festival. In July 2019 she was one of 842 new members invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. Frances-Anne is known for directing Hero: Inspired By The Extraordinary Life And Times Of Mr. Ulric Cross, A Winter Tale and What my mother told me.

Charles Officer is a Toronto born Jamaican-Canadian award-winning director, as well as an actor and writer. His directorial debut, When Morning Comes, premiered at TIFF in 2000. His follow up feature, Nurse.Fighter.Boy, won two audience awards and a jury award. In 2017 he made a splash with Unarmed Verses, which delves into issues surrounding youth and race in Toronto following the shooting of Trayvon Martin in the U.S. Unarmed Verses won Best Canadian Feature at Hot Docs and Best Canadian Documentary at VIFF. He is also know for The Skin We’re In and Invisible Essence: The Little Prince.

His most recent feature, Akilla’s Escape, premiered at TIFF 2020 and was nominated for Best Canadian Feature Film and for three DGC Awards, winning the award for Best Production Design- Feature Film. Akilla’s Escape has recently been acquired by Vertical Entertainment for distribution in the U.S. and has a planned release coming up later this year. 

Kelly Fyffe-Marshall is a director, screenwriter and activist who has seen incredible success with her sophomore film Black Bodies. The short premiered at TIFF 2020 and Kelly was awarded the inaugural Changemaker Award, which is presented to a film that tackles social change issues.

This January, Black Bodies premiered in the U.S. at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

She is currently working on her debut feature When Morning Comes.

We can’t wait to see what Kelly does next as she is sure to continue to make waves in the Canadian film & television industry.

Recently, Kelly tweeted her frustration about the underrepresentation of Black artists in Canada. Her tweet caught the attention of director Ava DuVernay and she was since featured on CBC’s The National in The Moment and on q with Tom Power.

Cory Bowles is an actor and director from Truro, Nova Scotia who relocated and is now a DGC Ontario Member. His 2017 feature Black Cop, which follows the story of a black police officer working in a privileged community, premiered at TIFF and won 11 awards, including the John Dunning Discovery Award at the Canadian Screen Awards and Best Canadian Feature at VIFF. He is also known for Pure and Trailer Park Boys, for which he received a 2016 DGC Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a comedy series.

He is also a dancer, choreographer and teacher at Maritime Dance Performance Group, Halifax Dance, Jazz Bliss and continues to choreograph for his own dance company, "Verve Mwendo".

Ariane Collman is a DGC Quebec Assistant Director. She has worked on films such as The Song of Names, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan and John Wick: Chapter 2. She is currently working on The Moodys. Ariane is also a member of the DGC’s BIPOC committee. We look forward to seeing her work and growth in the industry.

Anthony Q. Farrell is a writer, producer, actor and director best known for his works in writing for the Emmy winning sitcom The Office, Little Mosque on the Prairie and The Thundermans. He is also the creator of the BAFTA award winning series Secret Life of Boys.

Anthony was recently announced as the new showrunner for two separate but interconnected series The Parker Andersons and Amelia Parker with the former focusing on the comedic life of a bi-racial family and the latter about the life of the quietest member of the family, Amelia. In addition to being showrunner for the two shows, he will also be directing a few episodes, utilizing his life experiences growing up as a person of colour in North America along with the experiences of his diverse team to bring authenticity to the life of the characters.

Weyni Mengesha is an award-winning director and producer who started her career in the theatre world. She directed “da Kink in my Hair,” which debuted at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2001 and became an international sensation with 4 Dora Awards Nominations including Best Composition by Weyni. It made history by becoming the first Canadian play to be performed at the Princess of Whales Theatre, a 2000 seat theatre, and later became a television show.

In 2012 she directed Kim’s Convenience at the Soulpepper Theatre, which became the most commercially successful production in the company's entire history. She is now an executive producer and director on the hit CBC comedy of the same name, which brought a Korean Canadian family into the spotlight.

In 2018 Weyni was appointed as the new Artistic Director of Soulpepper Theatre Company.

Dason Johnson has worked in the film & television industry for over a decade working in the locations department as a scout and manager. His decade-long experience has led him to develop knowledge in areas of pre and post production and has led him to become the owner of a boutique audio and video production company in Toronto. 

Some of the productions he’s worked on include Dark Matter, Frankie Drake Mysteries, Dino Dana and the Odd Squad series.

Sudz Sutherland is an award winning screenwriter and director. His feature film Home Again won the PAFF-BAFTA Festival Choice Awards and was nominated for the DGC Awards. His first feature Love, Sex and Eating Bones premiered at TIFF and won best first feature and was also nominated for three Genies.

He is currently working on a comedy series for CFC-Netflix called #relationshipgoals and is also working on a new documentary series BLK: An Origin Story about the lost black history in Canada.

Sudz along with his wife Jen Holness are the founders of the production company Hungry Eyes Film & Television.

Alicia K. Harris is an award winning director and writer based in Toronto. She is dedicated to telling the stories of Black women and the underrepresented.

Her 2019 short film Pick, which follows the story of a girl and her afro on picture day, won awards at multiple film festivals and the Best Live Action Drama award at the 2020 Canadian Screen Awards. It is in the 2021 Oscar race for Best Live Action Short Film.

Other films she is known for include Love Stinks and Maybe if it were a nice room.

Alison Duke is an award-winning independent producer and director. Duke started  directing music videos for Toronto artists in the mid 90s before turning towards documentaries where she created her first feature documentary Raisin’ Kane: A Rapumentary for which she won the HBO best documentary award at the 2001 Urbanworld Film Festival. Since then, she has gone on to produce and direct many more award wining feature length documentaries that deal primary with social issues.