Panel: Experimental Workflows

Panelist: Pablo Alvarez-Mesa | Montreal

Colombian-born filmmaker Pablo Alvarez-Mesa’s works have played at international film festivals including Berlinale, IFFR, MoMA Doc Fortnight, Visions du Reel, and RIDM. His most recent film looking into Simón Bolívar’s battles of Independence and titled Bicentenario played at the 2021 Berlinale Forum Expanded, MoMA Doc Fortnight and FICUNAM among other festivals, earning a Jury Mention at Festival Punto de Vista in the Main Competition. Pablo is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents, Berlinale Doc/Lab and the CFC/NFB Doc Lab and Banff Centre for the Arts, amongst others. Pablo’s interest in documentary lies in the relationship between fact and fiction; between what is recalled and what is inevitably constructed. His films all touch in one way or another issues of displacement, history and collective memory.

Panelist: Jean-Pierre Marchant | Toronto

Combining his academic background in history with an interest in preservation and decay, past and present, and ephemerality and permanence, Jean-Pierre’s film & video practice interrogates themes such as youthfulness and glamour, Latino migration and rootlessness, working-class dreams and suburban disappointments. Jean-Pierre is currently the Director of Operations for the CineMobilia mobile media lab, based at York University. His works have screened and won awards in several festivals and art galleries including Photophobia in Hamilton, ON, Trinity Square Video, the Calgary International Film Festival, WNDX, the Winnipeg, Montreal and Toronto Underground Film Fests, Antimatter [Media Art], International Portrait Film Festival, Galvanized Suns, Northwest Film Fest, and more. He recently completed his SSHRC-funded MFA in film at York University in Toronto, Canada. | jpmarchant.com

Panelist: Madi Piller | Toronto
Madi Piller is a filmmaker, animator, programmer, and independent curator currently living and working in Toronto, Canada. Her abstract, nonrepresentational and poetic images are drawn from film explorations in Super 8, 16mm and 35mm, as well as photography and video. The resulting imagery is strongly influenced by diverse animation techniques and styles.

Madi’s films have been screened at film festivals, alternative spaces, and contemporary art venues nationally and internationally including TIFF Wavelengths, the Festival du Cinema Jeune (Paris, France), Bienal de La Imagen Movimiento (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and the Melbourne Animation Festival (Melbourne, Australia). Her work has been produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and  Chalmers Arts Fellowship. International residencies include Museum Quartier21, Vienna Austria, the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, Yukon, NWT, and the Independent Imaging Retreat, Durham, Ontario. | madipiller.com

Facilitator: Felipe Martín | Montreal

Originally from Colombia, Felipe is a director and cinematographer working in the Quebec scene since 2012. Felipe graduated from Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) in Film Studies, as well as from the Septima Ars School (Madrid, Spain) in Lighting and Camera for Film and Television. His work is diverse, ranging from commercials and feature films to documentary series around the globe, but as a director he is especially drawn to intimate, social and sometimes anthropological documentaries. His artistic approach is defined by the notions of identity, sacredness and ritual. He has participated in colloquia and academic research since his undergraduate degree and is currently a lecturer at Laval University in the new program in cinema and digital culture.