FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 6, 2024, Vancouver, BC.) – Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) organizers are pleased to announce the award-winning writer/directors Virginia Abramovich (Between Waves) and Kate Green (NarcoLeap) are the 2024 recipients of the WIDC BANFF Fellowship Award.
Made possible through a long-standing partnership with the BANFF World Media Festival which is celebrating its 45th anniversary (June 9 to 12, 2024), the fellowship is designed to provide WIDC alumni with the opportunity to network and advance their projects at BANFF’s world-class market.
The award, administered by WIDC, provides a complimentary full-access pass each for Abramovich and Green to attend the Banff World Media Festival where they will be meeting with potential funders, producers, and broadcasters. In addition, the award includes coaching from WIDC’s Dr. Carol Whiteman for the fellows’ prep for BANFF, debriefing during BANFF, as well as two months of follow up coaching to create their strategic plans for after BANFF.
Green and Abramovich are alumni from the same WIDC Story & Leadership cohort in 2016. In addition to their respective slates of projects, they are also collaborating on a dark comedy series, Tasteless.
“United by our passion for storytelling with our individual projects as well as being empowered by our collective vision for our series ‘Tasteless’, I am honored to share this accolade with my esteemed cohort sister Virginia Abramovich,” says Kate Green. “We are dedicated to redefining boundaries, amplifying voices, and inspiring audiences. Sharing this award is an opportunity to showcase our individual projects at the Banff World Media Festival, as well as a chance to celebrate the limitless possibilities when women lead and support each other in the film and television industry.”
“I’m honoured to receive the WIDC BANFF Fellowship Award and, to top it off, share this award with Kate Green, who is a good friend, talented storyteller and collaborator. Our cohort of WIDC directors continues to support and bolster each other on our filmmaking journey,” says Virginia Abramovich. “I look forward to attending BANFF with Kate, and an exciting slate of projects. I appreciate this opportunity and thank WIDC and BANFF for their support.”
WIDC’s 2023 BANFF Fellow, Hayley Gray has received Telefilm funding for her debut feature Send the Rain (with co-director Kaayla Whachell) and is going to camera in August 2024. Her second feature is partially financed, and her television pilot is now with Robot Monkey Entertainment.
This year’s award presentation will be made at the annual WIDC Launch Event, June 7, at 1:00 pm PDT, a by invitation Zoom event, where Kate and Virginia will be guests of honour.
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BACKGROUNDER:
ABOUT VIRGINIA ABRAMOVICH
Virginia Abramovich is an award-winning director and writer, with a passion for telling sci-fi and dark comedic, female-driven stories about lost rebels looking for connection. Known for her distinct voice and visually compelling cinematic style, her work has screened in festivals worldwide and on networks including Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Lifetime, Crave, TUBI, CBC and others. Virginia is an alumna of Meryl Streep’s The Writers Lab NYC, CineStory Fellowship, Woman In the Director’s Chair, and the Canadian Film Centre. Her writing accolades include Bronze prize-winner of PAGE International Screenwriting Awards; Top 10 Finalist in Final Draft’s Big Break Screenwriting Contest, and Female Eye Film Festival Best Screenplay. Her debut feature BETWEEN WAVES won Best Feature at Boston Sci-Fi, Best Director at OFFA and received both CSA and Whistler Film Festival nominations. Other festival screenings include Cinequest Film and VR, DeadCenter, Portland Film Festivals, and many others. Virginia has several projects in development including a dark half hour ‘foodie’ comedy, TASTELESS, and a dystopian sci-fi feature, L1L. Her escape plan for the zombie apocalypse is to pitch a tent in the forest and use her overactive imagination to access a parallel plane.
ABOUT KATE GREEN
Kate Green is a well-organized, creative director with a cinematic eye who loves telling stories in both short form and long form formats. Having also had experience in both factual, lifestyle, competition and reality television Kate brings a unique and natural curiosity to her work. Kate is the creator of NarcoLeap a sci-fi short form series which first aired on TELUS OptikTV, CBC GEM. Season one garnered a Canadian Screen Award nomination, a Writers’ Guild of Canada nomination, and three Leo Award nominations and won Best Sci-Fi at Miami Web Fest, Baltimore Next Media Web Fest and the Asia Web Awards. The series had a 2.4 million social media reach resulting in 600k channel views. Kate’s short film, a zombie western titled Murphy’s Law recently aired on CBC and won Best Horror Thriller at the Wild Bunch Film Festival. Kate is currently in production for a WW2 short film, Breakthrough to be released in 2025. Her company Kate Green Productions recently received Bell Slate funding for a half hour comedy and children’s science factual series. Kate’s a proud Alumna of Women In the Director’s Chair, the National Screen Institute of Canada, and the Reykjavík Talent Lab where she got to meet the president of Iceland and Bjork!
ABOUT WIDC
Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) was launched in June 1996 at the BANFF World Media Festival as an initial collaboration among ACTRA, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Women In Film and Television Vancouver (now GEMS Vancouver). Since its 1997 pilot workshop, more than 360 director alumni across Canada have gone on to create 1000’s of hours of quality screen entertainment. They consistently garner 100’s of awards and nominations annually. https://www.widc.ca/directory/.
Presented with major support from Telefilm Canada, Warner Bros. Discovery Access Canada, and with the participation of Creative BC, UBCP/ACTRA, Actra Fraternal Benefit Society, ACTRA National, and the Independent Production Fund; WIDC community collaborations include Directors Guild of Canada, GEMFest (formerly VIWFF), Female Eye Film Festival, St John’s International Women’s Film Festival, Reelworld Screen Institute, Summit & Film Festival, Crazy 8’s, TIFF Share Her Journey, VIFF, Whistler Film Festival, and the BANFF World Media Festival. WIDC Feature Film Award sponsors include: MELS, Keslow Camera, Panavision Canada, Raw Camera, MTL Grande, Distillery Visual Effects Company 3, Kalos Studios, Elemental Post Production, North Shore Studios, The Bridge Studios, Vancouver Film Studios, The Research House Clearance Services Inc., Walter Lighting & Grip, Front Row Insurance, Descriptive Video Works, EP Canada, Portable Electric, National Captioning Canada, and Line 21, Champ & Pepper, and GAT PR.
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