BANFF Spark Accelerator announces 2022 cohort
Ania Jamila is selected as one of the particpants of the Banff SPARK showcase.
This year's program will have 100 participants, 66% of whom self-identify as Black, Indigenous, people of colour, LGBTQ2S+ and/or professionals with disabilities.
The Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) has announced 100 participants for this year’s BANFF Spark Accelerator for Women in the Business of Media.
Supported by the federal government’s Women Entrepreneurship Strategy, BANFF Spark is designed to address the systemic gap in gender equality, representation and diversity by providing training, mentorship and access to potential strategic partners to women entrepreneurs in the screen-based media industry.
Of the participants in this year’s cohort, 66% self-identify as Black, Indigenous, people of colour, LGBTQ2S+, and/or professionals with disabilities. Participants include Monkey Beach director-producer-co-writer Loretta Sarah Todd and filmmaker Tamara Dawit, a founding board member of the Racial Equity Media Collective.
Other 2022 participants include Lauren MacKinlay, who joined Neshama Entertainment as creator producer last month; screenwriter Jennifer Irons (Pretty Hard Cases), who founded META Talent Agency, Canada’s first Black-owned film and TV literary agency, and made Playback‘s 10 to Watch list last year; and Kulbinder Saran Caldwell, founder and CEO of boutique literary agency and production company REALLIFE Pictures.
BlockFilm co-CEO Pauline Couture is also in the cohort, along with screenwriter Karen Walton (Ginger Snaps); Tara Ellis, content producer and creative executive who founded 3B Content and was executive director, scripted content at CBC from 2015 to 2017; producer Maddy Falle of Obvious Allegory Inc., who made Playback‘s Five to Watch list in 2019; and producer-director Shazia Javed, a Playback 10 to Watch honouree in 2020.
The full list is on the website.
The participants were selected from hundreds of applications from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. They’ll also have access to business development programming and top international media industry players at BANFF, which will run in person in Banff, Alta., from June 12 to 15.
Super Channel is the founding industry partner for the program, which is designed to support up to 200 entrepreneurs over the course of three years.
“Since its inception, the overarching goal of BANFF Spark has been to support the launch and growth of significantly more Canadian women-owned media companies that excel both here at home and on the global stage,” said Jenn Kuzmyk, executive director of the Banff World Media Festival and VP, publisher of Playback. “We could not be more proud of what the program has achieved so far. Over the past two years, the women-owned companies which have taken part in BANFF Spark have formed key partnerships, moved projects and business forward in the market, and contributed to the creation of a more fair and equitable media industry. We look forward to building on this success as we welcome 100 new and talented entrepreneurs to the 2022 edition of the program.”
