Our Team | Notre équipe
Sahkosh Prod’ is a production company in the Grand Toronto Area, that produces series and movies, founded by Josiane Blanc & Ania Jamila, two women of colour who decided to join forces, determined to shed light on powerful human stories, from underrepresented communities, making the invisible palpable and the unheard listened to.
Josiane and Ania met in 2018, as they were both finalists in the National Film Board (NFB) Tremplin contest, an initiative for emerging francophone filmmakers. They were both lost in the streets of Moncton, where all the 9 finalists were flown, and that’s how they managed to find their way to the NFB office. When it was time to go back home to Toronto, a snow storm forced them to spend many more hours, stuck in a airport together. Some would say, it was just meant to be.
A few months later, they decide to join forces, creating Sahkosh Prod’, to produce projects that are important and meaningful to them: human stories with a strong creative and cinematic vision that give a real place to diversity, far from the stereotypes that we usually see in movies and in TV shows.
What does Sahkosh mean? This neologism is referring to a French Canadian slang idiom “Su’a coche”, that means "On the mark". Josiane and Ania believe we can hustle and be serious about what we create, without taking ourselves too seriously.
Josiane Blanc
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Josiane Blanc is a writer, director, producer who’s passionate about cultural interactions and a firm believer in the use of media as a vector of change. Her versatility allowed her to work with a variety of content in Film and TV, whether it’s scripted, unscripted, or documentaries, for both adult and youth audiences.
In 2016, she developed and directed for French broadcaster TFO, Jeunes d’exception (Amazing Teenagers), a documentary webseries about exceptional teenagers who have distinguished themselves by their actions, inventions or community engagements. In 2020, her short documentary Tales of Ordinary Fatphobia addressing the psychological impact of fatphobia on kids and teens, was produced by the NFB and premiered on Radio-Canada. Critics described it as a treasure of delicacy, hard-hitting, difficult to watch but necessary film.
In 2021, Josiane wrote, directed and coproduced Ainsi va Manu (Hogtown), a 7-episode scripted web series telling the story of Manuela, a 16-year-old girl who decides to fight back when her family is threatened to be evicted from their apartment in Toronto. The series, currently streaming on TV5 & TFO, has been selected in 15 festivals, received over 40 nominations, and won 6 awards, including best screenplay & best director. That same year, she also wrote, hosted & produced the French episodes of the podcast series Strong & Free retracing Canadian Black history for Historica Canada.
In the unscripted world, Josiane recently wrote 20 episodes of In-génie, a STEM/DIY tech show, 10 episodes of Bouchées du Monde, an international world cuisine show and 7 episodes of Échappes-toi si tu peux, an escape room / fun facts game show, all three series targeting tween audiences.
Josiane is currently writing for multiple projects: Season 2 of her series Hogtown (Ainsi va Manu), a new series Hotel Beirut (TFO) and one episode of the Bell Media/ Crave bilingual series Festival.
Josiane just completed the post-production of her short comedy film Faux Départ and is currently in production of Words Left Unspoken. Supported by AlJazeera, her first feature documentary film follows the journey of her friend Joze, a severe stutterer, overcoming his fears after spending the first 20 years of his life avoiding speaking.
Ania Jamila
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Ania Jamila is a Canadian producer, director and writer of Moroccan-Romanian heritage. She has lived in three continents and speaks five languages fluently. While still making her mark on the television production and film scene, she has over 15 year’s experience in the audio-visual production industry as she founded the production company, Luve Films Inc, in 2012, and created video campaigns for small companies and international brands like Nintendo and Cirque du Soleil.
In 2018, the National Film Board of Canada took an interest in her work when it selected her documentary project for its Tremplin award. A few months later, Ania Jamila was listed among the 25 winners of the Banff World Media Festival, within their Diversity of Voices initiative.
In May 2020, her short documentary film was selected for the Hot Docs’ Short Pitch competition, in partnership with Al Jazeera. In August 2020, just a few months later, Telefilm Canada selected her for her production of a seven-episode TV series, supported by two primary Canadian broadcasters, TV5 and TFO.
Ania Jamila is currently devoting her energies to several direction and production projects, including two documentary series (Immersion and She Boss Tribe), a feature-length documentary (Johanne) directed by Nadine Valcin, a short documentary (The Long Trudge), a narrative feature-film (The Metic) and three narrative tv series (Beirut Hotel, Comma and Hogtown Season II). Whatever the nature or format of the project she sets her sights on, Ania Jamila makes sure to spotlight the stories that inspire social change, narratives that unite communities or that celebrate diversity.