Evaluation Juries

Adam Sigel is a writer, producer and content strategist working across multiple platforms. As a writer, Adam’s list of credits include feature films and TV series for companies such as Alcon Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Hearst Entertainment among others. He served as a writer and story editor for Steven Spielberg on his video game project for Electronic Arts and was a writer/producer of the award-winning web/mobile cross-platform series “Afterworld.” He has developed digital content and served as content strategist for a wide range of companies including Disney, Microsoft, Activision, Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Sony/Columbia Tri-Star, Fox Searchlight, Suzuki, GE and NBC/Universal. Also, he has served as expert or mentor to cross-media producers for international organizations such as Nordisk Film and TV, Screen Australia, Torino Film Lab, Power to the Pixel, Independent Filmmaker Project, Berlinale Talent Campus, Atlantic Film Festival, Merging+Media, Distrito Cinema of Columbia, Forum Brazil, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland and the National Film Board of Canada.

Adam studied film production at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and graduated with high honours from Wesleyan University (film and history).

Adriana Chartrand is the Institute Manager at imagineNATIVE. She has two degrees in Film Studies, including an M.A. from the University of Toronto for which she received a SSHRC grant. She also has an Arts Administration & Cultural Management diploma from Humber College. She has previously pre-screened short films for the Toronto International Film Festival and worked on the Canada's Top Ten Film Festival. She attends festivals and film markets globally as part of her role at imagineNATIVE, including the Berlinale/European Film Market, the Clermont-Ferrand Festival in France, the inaugural Indigenous Film Summit in Winnipeg, and numerous multi-media festivals in Toronto. She was born and raised in Winnipeg, MB. and speaks English and French. She is Métis from the Red River region, Treaty 1 territory, and has also Irish, Scottish, Welsh and French ancestry.

Alison Norrington is a storyteller, producer and experience designer. She is founder of storycentral, a London-based entertainment studio that incubates and develops ground-breaking IP with global partners in film, television, Virtual Reality, theme parks, animation, gaming and advertising. She specializes in storytelling and experiences crossing traditional formats, live events, digital and location-based entertainment. Alison explores new frontiers of experiential storytelling and has designed and led labs at the London Film School, Singapore Media Academy/MediaCorp, Swedish Design Institutes and the Royal College of Art. She is an expert program and event organizer, working with many global events and partners including Canada Media Fund, ITVFest, Canada Screen Awards, Festival de Television, The Children’s Media Conference, Banff World Media Festival and Canada Media Producers Association. Alison is Conference Chair for StoryWorld Conference, Exec Producer of the Virtual Reality Thread for The Children’s Media Conference, is a two-time TEDx speaker and has presented at a number of entertainment and media conferences worldwide. She is featured on the BAFTA Guru series and is a member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, The Writers Guild of Great Britain and Women in Film & TV.

Amber MacArthur is the co-host of App Central on CTV, a television show that features the latest developments in mobile technology and social media. The show airs in Canada, Singapore, Australia and South Korea. She is also the President of Konnekt Digital Engagement, a digital marketing agency based in Halifax and Toronto. After receiving a post-graduate degree in Journalism, majoring in the digital realm, she moved to San Francisco to work for two tech start-ups during the dot-com boom. Upon returning to Canada, Amber worked as a web strategy manager with Microsoft Canada, leading the development and editorial teams to create a female-focused lifestyle portal. She was also the country’s first new media reporter, covering digital news for Toronto’s Citytv. In 2010, Canadian Business named Amber Canada’s top social media expert on how to build a brand.

With more than 20 years of professional experience, Ana Cecilia Springefeldt is the Co-founder of Civetta Entertainment, a company specialized in financing, developing and producing audiovisual projects. Throughout her career, she has built a broad and strategic market view, having worked in the public sector as an advisor to the board of directors at ANCINE (Brazilian National Film Agency), as well as privately at top audiovisual production companies and at the Film Fund RB Cinema 1. In the last three years, she has acted as Executive Producer for School of Series - a series development program focused on TV and other platforms - and as the Market Coordinator for RioMarket and Brazilian Film Festivals of Paris, Montreal and Toronto. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Social Communication and Advertising from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.

Anita Ondine is an internationally renowned transmedia creator, consultant and educator, who has overseen the concepting and development of over a dozen original transmedia properties, including Lance Weiler’s groundbreaking Pandemic 1.0 which was the first fully transmedia story experience to debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Anita also produced the companion short film “Pandemic 41.410806,-75.654259,” which premiered in competition at Sundance and was distributed via a US cable network reaching 28 million homes. Anita runs her own production company, LivOn Productions. Anita has also worked with several major broadcasters in Europe, Asia and the United States to develop their own transmedia programs. She co-founded the popular Transmedia Next workshop series where she is Creative Director and Lead Trainer. Anita is a vocal advocate of the power and potential that transmedia in particular, and digital media more broadly, provides storytellers and has a specific interest in using transmedia in the context of social change. She speaks internationally on themes related to transmedia and the intersection of technology and entertainment, and is a Board Member of Screen Tasmania.

Annelise Larson comes from a background as an independent producer, with training at such prestigious institutions as the Canadian Film Centre (Producers’ Lab) and Banff Centre for the Arts (Electronic and Film Media). Since 1995 she has been working in the field of online marketing and has always been an avid gamer and consumer of digital content. She works extensively with government organizations and production companies in the film, television and interactive industries in North America. Her focus is helping content creators and storytellers use the digital opportunity to define, find, attract and engage their audiences and work toward strategic and sustainable business models. She has sat on the Interactive Fund jury for BC Film + Media (now Creative BC), the Experimental Stream jury for the CMF, has taught across the country on behalf of such organizations as Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Film Centre, Women in Film, and the National Screen Institute, and is a highly sought after speaker for media festivals and conferences. Annelise has developed and implemented marketing strategies and gathered and analyzed online data for digital and screen media products as diverse as social TV apps, transmedia experiences, webisode series, feature films, television series and production companies themselves. Her online course Becoming a Storypreneur has been taught to media storytellers across Canada and in conjunction with Boost Hbg in Sweden to rave reviews. Currently, Annelise is excited to be working on launching a suite of webinars to teach how to think and work like a storypreneur and to bring the filmmaker crowdfunding and VOD platform Seed&Spark to Canada.

Annika Gustafson is the executive director of BoostHbg, a ground breaking development and funding incubator for innovative media and film in Helsingborg, Sweden. Previously based in Montreal, Annika spent many years developing her creative and business expertise in the international film industry. Returning to Sweden in 2010, she produced the Financing Forum for Kids Content before joining BoostHbg as the Nordic countries' first Transmedia Commissioner.

In Montreal, Annika was a board member of Doc Quebec and in Sweden she’s a board member of DocLounge and Nemo. She’s a well sought after speaker and panelist who also coaches companies on storytelling and audience/consumer reach.

With her passion for strong stories that can develop organically over several platforms, Annika draws on her years of experience as an award winning filmmaker to help clients and talents increase reach, impact, and financing possibilities. She continues to nurture her passion for social change through documentary story telling. Her Sundance supported film Brown Gold will premiere in 2015.

After more than 15 years as an executive producer on more than thirty films and television series, Audrey Pacart then went on to manage the content, programming and digital strategy of Tou.tv and Groupe V Média. Currently, within her new company, Very Story, she acts as an immersive content consultant and helps digital producers as well as artistic and cultural agencies to develop VR/AR financing and distribution strategies as well as installation projects. She also coaches and mentors creators while they develop their projects, namely in Columbia and France. Audrey regularly facilitates creative workshops and is currently working on the production of a VR fiction selected during the last Gap Financing Market at the 2018 Venice Festival.

Benjamin Hoguet writes and designs new kinds of narratives. His interactive and social projects strive to find a balance between engaging storytelling and audience involvement. His works range from interactive documentaries to digital comics, from virtual reality projects to native stories for social networks. These projects have been published by leading media company in France such as Le Monde and France Télévisions and by large institutions such as the French Ministry of Education, the European Parliament or an agricultural UNESCO chair in Paris.

He also writes about creating new narratives, having published four books on interactive storytelling and virtual reality. As a keynote speaker, during major events and in his weekly newsletter followed by thousands, he shares insights into writing and producing for the digital age and curates the largest collection of interactive works.

Britta brings nearly a decade of insights, strategy, brands and advertising to the table, as well as a lifetime of being a digital native. Passionate about developing and implementing great strategy and innovative insights to help brands and business achieve, Britta also has a special expertise in the digital and social space.
Britta has worked on digital, brand and innovation insights and strategy as well as creative campaigns and a few launches for a diverse group of brands including Coca-Cola, American Express, MTV, HBO, eos, P&G, Virgin America, Agent Provocateur, Jawbone, and the nonprofit Nanhi Kali. Most recently serving as Director, Digital Strategic Insights at MTV.

A new technology and digital media specialist since 1994, Bruno Guglielminetti worked as a director at Radio-Canada from 1987 to 2010, where he directed the Christiane Charette en direct show on Radio-Canada’s Première Chaîne radio station from 2006 to 2010. He wrote for La Presse from 1996 to 2003 and for Le Devoir from 2005 to 2010. He served as Director of Digital Communications and Strategic Information at the public relations firm National in Montréal from 2010 to February 2014, and has served as Digital Communications Director at the Just for Laughs Group since February 2014.

He is the author of the best-seller Les 1 000 meilleurs sites en français de la planète, published by Éditions Logique. In 2003, he received the Communicator of the Year Award from the International Association of Business Communicators (Canada). In 2004, he received the Mérite de la langue française award in the field of new technology from the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). In May 2009, he received the Excellence in Science and Technology Reporting Award from the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, in Ottawa.

Caitlin Burns has spent a decade working with narrative intellectual property franchises, independent artists, brands and philanthropic initiatives. Developing content strategies, overseeing multiplatform storyworlds and supervising localization campaigns spanning the globe, she understands what it takes to create a success story. Her independent feature McCarren Park, a film distributed by a geolocated mobile app, premiered at the Tribeca Film Institute’s Interactive Day and screened at the New York Film Festival.

Her past work includes: Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney Fairies, and Tron Legacy for The Walt Disney Company, James Cameron’s Avatar for Fox, Halo for Microsoft, Happiness Factory for The Coca-Cola Company, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Nickelodeon and Transformers for Hasbro. She has also worked with Sony, Showtime, Pepperidge Farm, Scholastic, Tribeca New Media Fund, FEMSA, Wieden+Kennedy, Odd Division, Tool of North America, Campfire, Reebok, Stratasys and The Disney Channel.

She regularly speaks to educational institutions including: Ithaca College, New York University, The New School, Ontario College of Art & Design, Bloomfield College, SUNY Purchase and Columbia University. She also travels internationally to speak and educate on business models and changing production practices in the entertainment industry.

Carl-Edwin is a tech and video game enthusiast. He is the founder and CEO of Northern Arena Productions, a TV and interactive production company, and Northern Arena inc one of Canada's biggest esports tournament organizers and the owner of Mirage esports an esports team organisation. Carl-Edwin Michel has also been reporting on the high-tech and gaming industry since 2009 as a freelance journalist, lecturer, radio and TV personality."

A trained economist, Carl-Frédéric de Celles is co-founder, president and senior partner of iXmédia, one of Quebec’s leading interactive solutions design and production firms. He has developed many original, popular and highly successful projects and initiatives, including the ZAP Québec community network and the annual Le Web à Québec conference (WAQ), and has been associated with Kabane, Zengo, Opossum, Molecube and Caribou. He is a member of the board of directors at a number of organizations, including Rencontres cinématographiques de Québec, ZAP Québec, WAQ and the ANDI (Art numérique et divertissement interactif) regional business round table. In recent years, he has been chairman of the board of the TECHNOcompétences sectoral committee for the IT industry workforce, headed the Workgroup on Digital Production and Interactive Media, and served as treasurer for the Institut canadien de Québec, which operates Quebec City’s public library network.

Carla Beauvais has made diversity and inclusion a major focus in her life. A columnist and social entrepreneur, she’s been tirelessly advocating for better representation and empowerment of Black and marginalized communities for more than 20 years.

A woman of strong convictions, Carla does not hesitate to use her voice for increasing awareness on issues of diversity and inclusion and in speaking out against social injustice. She’s regularly invited to share her opinions on relevant social issues and current events in the media. Her views and articles have been quoted or published in numerous publications including La Presse, Journal Métro (where she was a regular columnist from 2018 to 2020), Le Devoir, The Gazette, and HuffPost. More recently, she was a guest contributor to ICI RDI’s Zone Économie program hosted by Gérald Filion.

With her expertise and in-depth knowledge of diversity and inclusion issues, she’s also worked as a consultant to companies and organizations wishing to implement cultural diversity management programs. In order to better prepare her clients for introducing more inclusive practices, she completed a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University in New York in 2020 and is now in the process of obtaining her Certificate in Leadership and Inclusion from Centennial College in Toronto.

Well-known for her commitment to and involvement with Black History Month, Carla was selected by the U.S. Department of State to participate in the prestigious International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) in 2013. In 2015, she was named one of top 100 news personalities of the year by The Montreal Gazette.

Carla has been a member of the Véro & Louis Foundation board of directors since 2020. The organization provides services to adults living with autism spectrum disorder. As a mother and someone with personal experience in dealing with the impact of autism, her goal is to help make a difference for families and youth struggling with the disease.

Catherine Mathys has worked as a columnist, reporter and host for more than 15 years now. She specializes in covering and analyzing technological transformations. She holds a bachelor in sociology and a master’s degree in communication and particularly appreciates observing how we interact wioth technology and how technology impacts our daily lives. For several years now, she can be heard on ICI Radio-Canada Première and read in several other media outlets. She has been rewarded for her work at the Grands prix du journalisme indépendant du Québec as well as Canadian Online Publishing Awards (COPA). Finally, Catherine works as a university lecturer.

Catherine Warren is president of FanTrust Entertainment Strategies, an international management consulting firm for the digital distribution and media production industries. A digital media veteran with 25 years of experience, Catherine has published more than 25 books on science and computing for adults and children, and produced numerous award-winning websites and interactive broadcasts. She is the North American executive board member of the United Nation’s flagship World Summit Award for Digital Media, and is a judge for the international Digital Emmy Awards and the Rose d’Or.

Since his Gémeaux nomination for hosting the young adult show, C’est parti mon tipi, Charles has become a regular presence on Aboriginal People’s Television Network. He is the lead of Sioui-Bacon and the host of Sans reserve a new talk show on APTN french. On screen, he has appeared in a variety of productions, both in English and in French, such as Eaux Turbulentes (Blik TV and KO TV) and Being Human (Muse Productions). He was also the host of the four-part documentary series, Le 8e feu (8th Fire), a series tackling a variety of contemporary First-Nation issues, produced and aired by Radio-Canada. On stage, he has worked with a variety of politically and social active theatre companies such as Teesrie Duniya, Tableau d’Hote and Ondinnok. He is co artistic director of Productions Menuentakuan, a company that strives to produce engaging theater that facilitates a more meaningful relationship between Quebec First-Nations and the varied cultural diversity communities of the province. He also sits on the board of directors for many organizations that promote aboriginal culture.

Christopher Sandberg’s passion is strong scripted drama with rich audience participation. He uses broadcast shows, mobile games, social media and live events in a holistic way, to create world-renowned transmedia productions. Christopher Sandberg is Founder and Chief Creative Officer at The company P.

Christopher Sandberg’s productions have garnished numerous international awards and listed as milestones by WIRED Magazine UK. Christopher Sandberg created Scandinavia’s first participatory national digital TV-channel: TV4. He just premiered at the Royal Dramatic Theatre with a newly-written interactive play Gertrude’s Bachelorette, a prequel to Hamlet.