The annual SWIFF Industry Summit helps connect young professionals from the community with established leaders in the field. Featuring interactive workshops and masterclasses led by experts from different facets of the industry, the summit is a great way to engage with successful creatives and learn more about careers in the arts. Events for this year's summit (November 3rd-6th 2022) will be announced later this fall.
Last year's workshops included Directing & Acting with filmmaker/actors Joey Klein and Star Slade; Documentary Filmmaking with award-winning director/producer Hugh Gibson; and Work in Film with the Directors Guild of Canada.
Directing
& Acting
Workshop
Filmmaker/actors Joey Klein and Star Slade lead this workshop on how to foster evocative and efficient on-set communication. Through a series of interactive demonstrations, Joey and Star will introduce the “5 Super Objectives” that drive character 'fight' and motivations, and will teach techniques on how to direct and operate as actors in a particular scene. The action will be broken down into individual moments and beats through participants working through the scene with Joey and Star, supporting collaborative performance to mimic a real on-set environment.
Friday November 4th @ 9:00am
Sarnia Public Library
Presented by the DGC Ontario
Joey Klein is an acclaimed director, writer, and actor from Toronto. Joey’s directorial debut, The Other Half, premiered in competition at South By Southwest 2016. His second feature as a writer/director, Castle in the Ground, premiered to universal praise at the Toronto International Film Festival 2019 before playing numerous other festivals (including SWIFF 2019) prior to its wide release. Joey has also received widespread acclaim for his acting, including an ACTRA Award for Best Male Performance in We're Still Together (2016).
Star Slade is an emerging Toronto-based actor originally from Alberta. Star is best known for playing the role of Luna in four seasons of Burden of Truth on CBC, as well as performances in Netflix's Frontier (opposite Jason Momoa) and feature film Castle in the Ground.
Documentary
Filmmaking
Workshop
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Caitlin Durlak will lead a workshop on the art and craft of documentary filmmaking that will introduce participants to various approaches to portraying and working with real-life stories and subjects. Drawing on her varied experience with many different mediums, including web series, short films, feature films and VR storytelling, Durlak will provide a survey on the possibilities of the form and the ins and outs of making it in the industry. Durlak will answer questions and provide feedback for the curious of all ages—including the initiated and uninitiated alike!
Caitlin Durlak is a Toronto-based filmmaker. Her short film, Persistence of Vision, premiered at the 2015 Images Festival where it won prizes for best local film and best student film, and was also awarded Best Short Film at the Air Canada En Route Film Festival. Durlak is an MFA graduate of Ryerson University’s Documentary Media program, alumni of Hot Docs’ Doc Accelerator Emerging Filmmaker Lab and the RIDM Talent Lab. In addition to directing, Durlak produced her first feature-length documentary, Mermaids, directed by Ali Weinstein, which was made in association with the Super Channel and premiered at Hot Docs in 2017. Dropstones (2021) is Durlak’s mid-length directorial debut, on which she was also the producer, cinematographer and editor.
Friday November 4th @ 9am
Judtih & Norman Alix Art Gallery
How to Work in the Film Industry
Workshop
DGC Ontario will be hosting a presentation on Saturday, November 5th, 2022, at 11am to provide an introduction and general information about DGC Ontario and Ontario’s screen industry. We will also cover the benefits of being part of a labour organization, and the specific job categories represented by DGC Ontario. The presentation will emphasize the Guild Apprenticeship Program (GAP) as a pathway to Membership for emerging professionals. We will share information about the Guild Apprenticeship Program and key GAP application dates. Following our presentation there will be time dedicated to answering audience questions.
Saturday November 5th @ 11:30am
Judtih & Norman Alix Art Gallery
Presented by the DGC Ontario
Are you interested in joining Ontario’s exciting and rapidly growing screen industry?
The Director’s Guild of Canada (DGC) in Ontario is a provincial labour organization representing key creatives, operational specialists, and their respective departmental assistants in the following categories: Directors, Assistant Directors, Production Managers, Location Managers, Production Designers and Art Directors, Accountants, Picture Editors, Sound Editors and Post Production Supervisors.
To read more about our Guild Apprenticeship Program (GAP), please click on the following links:
How to Join page CLICK HERE
Our GAP FAQ page CLICK HERE
Presented by the Director's Guild of Canada
Amber Munro, Ontario