FACULTY & STAFF
People : Production : : Jean-Claude Bustros
Associate ProfessorB.F.A., Concordia University
e-mail: | phone: (514) 848-2424 ex.4346
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Throughout the nineties Jean-Claude Bustros has created several internationally acclaimed experimental films (Catalogue, La Queue Tigrée d'un Chat, Zéro Gravité), a major photo exhibition (Pierre et Lumière) and a documentary feature (Reliefs). He presided over the Independent Film and Video Alliance in 1994 and Main Film in 1992 and 1993. In 1994 he programmed and coordinated the 5 Days of Canadian Independent Cinema, and in 1998 he curated a showcase of Canadian experimental films of the nineties at The Goethe Institute in Montréal. His current research interest is the merging of medias.
People : Production : : Daniel Cross
Assistant ProfessorM.F.A., Concordia University
e-mail: | phone: (514) 848-2424 ex.5235
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Daniel Cross is the founding owner of EyeSteelFilm, a documentary production house. Previously Cross was an Assistant Professor at the University of Regina from 1999-2001. His award-winning documentary films include SPIT: Squeegee Punks in Traffic and The Street: A film with the homeless. His film Too Colourful for the League, produced for the CBC, was nominated for a Gemini Award. In 2005 he completed the films Inuuvunga: I am Inuk I am alive for the National Film Board and George: from Athens to Beijing for the BBC and CTV.
Cross is a National Executive Board Member of the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association (CFTPA), the Documentary Organisation of Canada (DOC) and the Observatoire du Documentaire, and is a member of The Concordia Documentary Centre. He was also a Congress Co-Director and Convenor of the "Documentary Democracy" workshops for the Visible Evidence XII Conference (http://www.visibleevidence.org), held at Concordia University in August 2005.
Cross's current research includes the new media project Homeless Street Archive (http://www.homelessarchive.org), "Documentary in Canada: Emerging Technologies, Aesthetics, Discourses, Cultures" (SSHRC Standard Research Grant, co-applicant with Thomas Waugh, Martin Allor and Liz Miller), and "Le projet de documentaire Nation Sans-Abris: vers l’appropriation d’un pouvoir de representation," (FQRSC, principal applicant).
People : Production : : Roy Cross
.:: Film Production Undergraduate Programme Head ::.Associate Professor
M.F.A., Concordia University, 1998
e-mail: | phone: (514) 848-2424 ex.4659
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Roy Cross grew up in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, home of North America’s longest running short film festival. He found himself making Super 8 films in high school where an interest in punk rock, fast cars and the pursuit of the plastic arts started him on his current path. Cross has been writing, producing and directing short films for the past sixteen years which have played Oberhausen, Ann Arbor, New York, Paris and other festivals around the world. He recently launched the DVD of his critically successful 35mm feature film, So Faraway and Blue (http://www.sofarawayandblue.com).
Cross’s interests lie predominately in fiction filmmaking but he explores alternative production practices that allow him to remain loyal to a story and the formal considerations of emulsion without being restricted by rules of convention or budget. He is currently finishing a short colour film and has recently begun a larger, more ambitious project involving 35mm black and white. This project is a series of short films connected by a similar location and theme. Cross is the 2005 recipient of the Kodak Faculty Scholars Award which will be used for the research and production of a short 35mm black and white, hand processed film. He has also recently received research and development funding for his second feature film entitled Falling to Earth.
Cross incorporates his research and filmmaking practices into classroom pedagogy emphasizing imagination and creativity over large, production management intensive projects. He is a hands-on filmmaker interested in, and knowledgeable of, new technologies but very much committed to artisanal practices.
People : Production : : Guylaine Dionne
.:: Film Production Graduate Programme Head ::.Associate Professor
M.F.A.
e-mail: | phone: (514) 848-2424 ex.4271
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A native of the Province of Quebec, Guylaine Dionne has been working steadily in the film and television industry for more than a decade, ever since she graduated with honours from Montreal’s Concordia University where she studied film production. In 2004, Dionne directed the feature-length television documentary, Mary Shelley, which was invited in competition at the L’Encre à l’écran film festival in Tours (France) where it won the “Lanterna Magica” Prize for Best Documentary. Her first independent feature film, Les Fantômes des trois Madeleine (The Three Madeleines), was selected by the Directors’ Fortnight and had its World Premiere at the 2000 Cannes International Film Festival. This was followed by an international tour of prestigious festivals in Portugal, Korea, Belgium, Italy and Canada. Les Fantômes des trois Madeleine received the following awards: Grand Prize at the Figueira da Foz International Film Festival (Portugal), the “Don Quijote” Award from the European Federation of Cine-Clubs and Special Mention from the international Critics’ Jury of the FIPRESCI.
While working on the screenplay and the production aspects of what would eventually become Les Fantômes des trois Madeleine, Dionne also directed four documentaries: two episodes for the series Îles d’inspiration, one dedicated to legendary poet and singer-songwriter Félix Leclerc, the other to historian and author Louis Caron; an episode of the series Through her Eyes entitled Jess Goes West, a road movie about a young Québécois woman on a trip throughout Western Canada, and an episode of the series Les Histoires oubliées entitled La Mémoire des lieux.
Dionne is currently producing and directing a feature-length film, Les mercredis de Rose, for which she wrote the script. She also has in development a feature-length drama, Serveuses demandées, for which she has written the script and that she will direct.
People : Production : : Richard Kerr
ProfessorMedia Arts Diploma, Sheridan College, 1979
e-mail: | phone: (514) 848-2424 ex.4349
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Image: Cinémathèque québécoise/Industry 2006
Photo credit: Michael Rollo
RICHARD KERR is a visual artist-media maker known for his expansive body of work, which has explored a multiplicity of genres and media since the early 1970s. He has created over 30 films and videos that have been screened and collected around the world. In the mid nineties Richard Kerr expanded his practice to encompass meta; cinema installation work and most notably conceptualization of the Motion Picture Weaving Light Box. Recent studio work includes INDUSTRY at Cinémathèque Québécoise 2006. Richard Kerrs current studio work involves the design of new meta; cinema installation for 2009, curated by the Double Negative Film Collective Montreal. Richard is also continuing his work with Electronic Small Press Publishing with an coming Edition concerning the notion of the Digital Sketch and Visual Processes, publication in 2009. Forevever the teacher / practioneer Richard continues with his annual Expanded Documentary Workshop at Escuela International de Cine y TV in Cuba a collaboration with the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. Please refer to www.richard-kerr.ca for more information.
Honours & Designations :
Professor of Distinction
Ryerson University Toronto
Faculty of Communication & Design
School of Image Arts 2008-2009
Chair
The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema 2004-2007
International Fellow
De Santis Center for Motion Picture Studies
Florida Atlantic University 2007
Inspiring Teacher Award
Faculty of Fine Arts
University of Regina Teaching Development Centre
University of Regina 1998
People : Production : : Louise Lamarre
Associate ProfessorB.F.A., Concordia Unversity
e-mail: | phone: (514) 848-2424 ex.4791
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Independent filmmaker Louise Lamarre graduated from Laval University (Certificate in Film Studies) and Concordia University (B.F.A. Film Production). Her field of experience includes a two-year specialization in intra-camera special effects as well as dramatic writing and directing (DramaLab) with the National Film Board of Canada.
She directed her first short film, Le Vernissage, in 1980. Since then she has acted as director, scriptwriter and producer on more than forty professional productions, ranging from fiction to documentary, including music video, advertisements, and corporate films. She has worked on some highly rated television series, such as (US/Canada co-production) Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and (France/Canada co-production) Les Nouvelles aventures des intrépides. Further, as a consultant for the government of Quebec, specifically the "Société de développement des entreprises culturelles" (SODEC), she has authored several important reports, including two major studies on independent production practices in Quebec, titled LE PRIX DE LA LIBERTÉ Vol. 1 (film) and Vol. 2 (video), published by the Institut québécois du cinéma (IQC). Since the beginning of her career, Louise has been conducting research in the field of special effects in cinema. Her latest research project, titled FX PROJECT, focuses on high definition technology, and is presently leading her to test novel techniques for in-camera real time special effects.
A major discovery of hers has been to control on the set and in real time, the depth of field of layered, true-to-scale imagery, to which an American patent has been granted in January 2007. She has named her invention: Holo Editorial Layering Process -H.E.L.P.-
Currently, she is the Head of the Film Production Program at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University.
As her interests lie in independent filmmaking, her major research fields and specialties are:
(a) Content: scriptwriting;
(b) Technological: in-camera real time special effects;
(c) Production: development of creative production methods.
Finally, these three specialties drive her three main present projects, which are titled:
(1) BREAKFAST IN NEW YORK, a fiction feature length film, which is presently at financing stage;
(2) BEYOND SIGHT, a feature length docu-drama, in development;
(3) DUST, a 7 minute experimental animated film, in post-production.
People : Production : : Marielle Nitoslawska
.:: Chair ::.Professor
M.F.A., Polish National Film School, 1984
e-mail: | phone: (514) 848-2424 ex.4665
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Image: Sky Bones
Nitoslawska's recently acclaimed documentaries Sky Bones and Bad Girl explore the undercurrents of our relationship to nature, sexuality and mortality. Her extensive filmography, produced in Poland, Mexico and Canada, includes numerous films about art and reflects her preoccupation with the cross-breeding of cultures.