FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 31, 2017: WIDC organizers are pleased to announce the four women directors selected to partake in the next edition of the WIDC Career Advancement Module (CAM) slated to take place June 19  to 24, 2017 during the Toronto’s Female Eye Film Festival which is celebrating its 15th anniversary.

The CAM is specially designed to be a career accelerator by focusing on the directors individual career paths and using their upcoming screen projects as case studies as they develop pitch materials and plans to advance those projects. Developing their debut feature films are Toronto-based filmmakers Virginia Abramovich who recently completed the WIDC Story & Leadership program in Whistler is further developing her debut feature film a biting comedy about a Russian-born Canadian woman who makes a life affirming choice during an epic family dinner party; Katia Café-Fébrissy self-described bilingual story designer who is developing a dramatic web series; Elizabeth Lazebnik whose shorts have screened at Female Eye and TIFF and is developing her next film project inspired by a Canadian female photographer working at the turn of the 20th century.

Other Canadian directors that have spring-boarded their careers forward through the CAM include Jordan Canning, whose WIDC Feature Film Award film Suck It Up! premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival; Siobhan Devine, winner of multiple ‘Best Direction’ awards for her debut feature film The Birdwatcher and television series Package Deal; and Winnifred Jong, whose WIDC-nominated comedic web series Tokens was recently selected among the Telefilm Canada MicroBudget projects and was advanced to the second stage of the Independent Production Fund’s web series competition.

Beginning with intensive master classes led by WIDC co-creator and producer, Carol Whiteman and MCE executive producer, Marina Cordoni, WIDC director participants then connect with industry experts from Telefilm Canada, Independent Production Fund, and Bell Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund. At the end of the week, each director sets strategic career goals then meets for one on one coaching once a month for the three months following the workshop to keep up the momentum generated during the festival.

The next session of the Career Advancement Module will take place during the St John’s International Women’s Film Festival, October 17 to 22, 2017. Telefilm Canada, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, provides major funding support for WIDC.

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Virginia Abromovich
A graduate of the CFC Directors Lab and WIDC Story & Leadership Program, Virginia Abramovich has directed film, television, commercial, and educational works. Her award-winning short films have played in major festivals worldwide and have been broadcast nationally on CBC, IFC and Bravo. Virginia’s most recent directing credits include the television series Opie’s Home for Marble Media, airing on TVO and Playdate airing on Family Jr., produced by Sinking Ship Productions. Virginia is developing a number of projects including the biting food comedy, Dirty Dishes, her feature film debut, slated for production in 2017.

Katia Cafe-Febrissy
Aka “KaFé” is a Toronto-based award-winning writer & director. She originates from Paris, France and is of French Caribbean heritage. She’s lived and worked in five different countries, and besides English and French, she speaks Spanish and Creole fluently. She is an alumna of the Varan Doc Film Centre, France where she earned her postgraduate diploma in Documentary Filmmaking. She also holds an MA in Literature and Languages from the Université de Paris VIII, France. KaFé is a full member of both the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) and the Francophone Writers Guild of Canada (SARTEC). In addition, she sits on the Board of Directors of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT). Her filmography includes Social Me / Mes réseaux social et moi (24 min), and the award-winning Root up / À la racine (27 min), two documentary films, which have received both public and critical acclaim.

Elizabeth Lazebnik
Born in Latvia, Elizabeth’s family migrated to numerous countries before settling in Canada where she lived for the past 19 years. Elizabeth has made over 10 short films, with 3 of them premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and other festivals such as Festival du Cinema Nouveau and Sudbury Film Festival. Her work has received awards and grants from the Female Eye Film Festival, HotDocs, NFB, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council. In 2015 she completed MFA in Film Production at York University. The experience of living in different countries around the world has given her the ability to communicate in multiple languages and has instilled a deep appreciation for the world’s incredible diversity and the need to capture the stories she has witnessed on film. Most recently, she has won the 2017 K.M. Hunter Artist Award in the Media Arts discipline. The award is administered through the Ontario Arts Council – Conseil des arts de l’Ontario and Ontario Arts Foundation.

ABOUT WIDC
Founded in 1997, Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) works on a director-by-director basis to address the well-known poor statistics around women-directed fiction on screen. WIDC delivers internationally respected mentorship, development, and production award offerings, specially designed to advance the careers and fiction screen projects of Canadian women directors. WIDC has fostered the development of over 220 award-winning Canadian women screen directors who can now be found on a newly launched WIDC alumnae directory (widc.ca/directory).

WIDC is presented with major support from Telefilm Canada, Harold Greenberg Fund, and ACTRA, and with the participation of the Canada Council for the Arts

Conseil des Arts du Canada, Actra Fraternal Benefit Society, ACTRA National, TELUS STORYHIVE, Creative BC, UBCP/ACTRA, Independent Production Fund, ACTRA Alberta, IATSE 669; and appreciates community collaborations with 1st Weekend Club’s Canada Screens, National Film Board, WIFT Vancouver’s International Women In Film Festival, Female Eye Film Festival, St John’s International Women’s Film Festival, WIFT Toronto, WIFT Atlantic, Film Fatales Toronto, Black Women Film-Canada, Women In View, New York WIF&T, Alliance of Women Directors, Tangerine Entertainment, Crazy 8’s, TIFF, and the Whistler Film Festival.

The WIDC Feature Film Award is supported by Bell Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund, William F. White International, Encore Vancouver, MELS Studios, Skylab Vancouver, Tattersall Sound and Picture, Technicolor Toronto, White Hart Post Production, Clairmont Camera Film and Digital, Panavision Canada, SIM Digital, The Bridge Studios, North Shore Studios, Vancouver Film Studios, The Research House Clearance Services Inc., Descriptive Video Works, and Front Row Insurance.