Board of Directors
Rosa Sarabia – Chair
Professor of Latin American Literature in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Toronto.
http://spanport.utoronto.ca/faculty/sarabia
Danilo Baracho – Human Resources
Danilo is a Brazilian filmmaker who graduated in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Salamanca in Spain. He also studied economics and believes in filmmaking as a powerful tool for social change. His short films have been screened at over 80 film festivals around the world and received important prizes in Latin America, Europe, and North America. Danilo was selected by the Toronto International Film Festival for the TIFF Talent Lab program in 2014 and Reykjavik Transatlantic Lab in 2015.
Eugene Weis – Public Relations
Eugene has worked in the film industry as an Editor for the last 10 years entrusted by the top Directors and industry professionals in the Canadian film business. His most recent work as Editor of Milk, premiered at HotDocs 2015 in Toronto and was nominated for best feature documentary at the 2015 Hollywood Film Festival. Weis also edited The Poet of Havana, winner of the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary at the 2015 Gasparilla International Film Festival. The Poet of Havana aired on HBO Latino across the United States in October of 2015.Who The F**K Is Arthur Fogel, which garnered Eugene a nomination for “Best Picture Editor” by the Canadian Academy of Motion Pictures (2015), aired on HBO Canada and can be spotted on Netflix.Samples of Eugene’s work can be found here: https://vimeo.com/user18316233
Jaime Escallon - Tresurer
Jaime has written, produced and directed scripted and factual content in multiple languages and in very diverse cultural contexts. He began his career directing over 300 hours of scripted television in Latin America. His debut feature film The Boss was released to great commercial success in Canada, Colombia, the US and Argentina, tripling its production budget. In 2012 Jaime directed the Emmy-Award-Winning documentary The Cancer Dancer. Jaime's productions have aired to great success in networks such as Discovery, History, CBC, Bravo, TV5 and Nat Geo among others, in over 52 countries. Jaime studied Film and Television at the National University of Colombia and has a Master's degree in Drama from the University of Toronto.
Alexandre Ramos – Programming
Alex was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the publisher of VISIT curatorial art magazine, curator of Brazilian Film & Television Festival of Toronto (BRAFFTV), and co-curator at aluCine Latin Film + Media Arts Festival. He studied Visual Arts at University of Sao Paulo (USP); holds a Specialist degree in Art Education at NACE-USP and in Museum Studies at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Sao Paulo, a Master’s degree in Sociology of Culture at FEUSP, and a PhD in Art History, Theory and Criticism at UFRGS Institute of Arts. Author of the book “Media and Art: contemporary views” (2006) and organizer of “On the Work of the Curator” (2010), among others. He was a production assistant on the web series Standardized (9 episodes), set designer in Twister and Recurrent, and color consultant in Carmelo’s Tomatoes.
http://alexandreramos.weebly.com/
Advisory Board
Victoria Moufawad-Paul
Programming Director
A Space Gallery
www.aspacegallery.org
Vicky Moufawad-Paul is a Toronto based curator and writer. She is the Director / Curator at A Space Gallery. She has curated exhibitions at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Carlton University Art Gallery, Gallery 101, MAI: Montréal arts interculturels, Latitude 53, Museum London, McIntosh Gallery, Contact Photography Festival, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, A Space Gallery, and 16 Beaver.
She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario and an MFA in Film and Video from York University. She was a member of the Board of Directors at Trinity Square Video, and the Advisory Board of AluCine Media Arts Festival and the Toronto Palestine Film Festival. She was the founding director of the Toronto Arab Film Festival and has worked at the Toronto International Film Festival. She served a three year term on the Visual & Media Arts Advisory Committee at the Toronto Arts Council and has been invited to adjudicate grants for arts funding bodies as well as arts organizations.
Susan Lord
Head of Department & Associate Professor at Queen’s University.
Professor in the Department of Film and Media, jointly appointed to the Departments of Art and Gender Studies, and currently serving as the Director of the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies and the Vulnerable Media Lab.
My research interests have landed in the areas of cinema and media arts, cosmopolitanism, gendered spaces and the city, and Cuban cinema and visual culture. With a background in feminist and critical theory, my research has been dedicated to the histories of vulnerable media and in the remediation of these histories through curatorial and cultural events. These projects are necessarily collaborative, engaging with other researchers, cultural producers, policy and social actors to advance citizenship practices, expand the civic spaces, and decolonize the lands on which we live and work. . To this end, I am Director of the CFI-awarded Vulnerable Media Lab (https://www.queensu.ca/vpr/social-ecology-vulnerable-media), a new collaborative research project dedicated to the social ecology of media arts collectives and collections, and to the preservation, migration and remediation of media arts archives by women, Indigenous peoples, and local groups. Directly linked to the VML is my involvement as a co-applicant on a partnership project entitled Archive/Counter Archive, headed by Dr. Janine Marchessault at York University. The Vulnerable Media Lab has been awarded a Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant. I have also received multiple SSHRC, Canada Council, OAC and Queen's research awards.
My publications include two recent special issues of PUBLIC: Archive/Counter Archives and Havana (http://www.publicjournal.ca/issues/). A book on the Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez is forthcoming in 2019 from University of Indiana Press. Other books include one on the visual culture of gender and violence-- Killing Women: Gender, Violence and Representation (with Annette Burfoot) Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006; and a collaborative project on the global 1960s, New World Coming: The Sixties and the Shaping of Global Consciousness (with K. Dubinsky, C. Krull, S. Mills, S. Rutherford) Between the Lines Press, 2009.
Susan Douglas
SOFAM/Art History, Contemporary Art/Visual Cultures/Visual Theories/Latin America at University of Guelph
Experienced Professor with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. Skilledin Art Education, Lecturing, Academic Writing, and Proposal Writing. Strong education professional graduated from ISA.
Charles C. Smith
Lecturer, Cultural Pluralism in the Arts/University of Toronto Scarborough
Project Lead/Cultural Pluralism in Performing Arts Movement Ontario Research Associate/Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Artistic Director, ‘wind in the leaves collective’.
www.charlescsmithconsulting.ca
Francisco Alvarez
Art Consultant, Co-founder of Mr. Pink Art Consultants. Previously Managing Director of the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum
Francisco has extensive professional experience in the arts and culture sector. As Director of the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum, he produced more than 25 exhibitions and associated public programs and publications. Projects Include: Edward Burtynsky: Oil, El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, Shanghai Kaleidoscope, David Hockney’s Fresh Flowers, Vanity Fair Portraits, Bollywood Cinema Showcards, Observance and Memorial: Photographs from S-21 Cambodia, and Housepaint Phase 2: Shelter. With a thorough knowledge of arts management and communications, he has solid expertise in international contemporary art, museums, non-profit and commercial galleries and artists. Holding Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Business Administration degrees, Francisco serves on several Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards, including Toronto’s Nuit Blanche.
http://mrpinkart.com/