Ishani Nath

Ishani Nath is currently a freelance writer and editor who has appeared on CBC and has bylines in FLARE, Maclean’s and Reader’s Digest Canada. She covers everything from the latest must-see movie to the cultural significance of Indian jewelry for second gen kids

Stephen Gong

Stephen Gong is the executive director of the Center for Asian American Media, having been associated with CAAM since its founding in 1980. He lectured in the Asian American Studies program at UC Berkeley, teaching and writing on Asian American media history.

Tiffany Hsiung

Tiffany Hsiung is a Toronto-based filmmaker. Her documentary debut, The Apology (‘16, NFB) has won awards internationally, including the Peabody Award and the Allan King Memorial Award.  She just completed a short documentary hybrid The Bassinet (‘19) for Five @ 50: An Intimate Look at Contemporary LGBTQ2+ Lives and Identities (NFB) and is in post for her short documentary Sing Me a Lullaby (‘19, CBC).

Jenna Tenn-Yuk

Jenna Tenn-Yuk is a writer, speaker and facilitator who empowers people to share their stories and truths. She has spoken internationally at Harvard, The Walrus Talks and TEDx, exploring the complexities of race, faith, and queerness. Her writing has appeared in HuffPost, CBC, Broadview and Ottawa Citizen. She is a founding member of the Asian Canadian Women’s Alliance.

Mariam Zaidi

Mariam Zaidi is a South Asian filmmaker and arts manager based in Toronto. Zaidi’s work has been funded and supported by the CBC, LIFT, TAC, OAC, Canada Council for the Arts, BravoFACT! FACTOR Canada, and the NFB. Alongside her independent film work, Zaidi is currently the associate programmer at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and executive director at the Breakthroughs Film Festival.

Nicole Mendes

Nicole Mendes has spent the past decade working in Scripted Content at the CBC. As executive in charge of production for CBC Drama, she currently oversees Murdoch Mysteries, Anne With an “E,” a co-venture between CBC and Netflix, as well as Canada/New Zealand co-production, The Sounds with Shaftesbury and South Pacific Pictures. Mendes has served and sat on multiple juries and various industry panels with TIFF, WGC, DGC, and WIFT-T.

Michael Fukushima

Michael Fukushima is studio head and executive producer of the National Film Board of Canada’s world-renowned English Animation Studio. After freelancing following college, Fukushima joined the Animation Studio in 1990 as a filmmaker, then became a studio producer, and is now head of the fabled studio, with over 200 films (and some nice awards and nominations) under his belt.

Amar Wala

Amar Wala’s debut feature The Secret Trial 5 received the Emerging Filmmaker Jury Award at Hot Docs, and the Magnus Isacsson Award at RIDM. Often using his cinema to deconstruct notions of race and identity, Amar has also directed series for CBC, Viceland and the newly opened Shopify Studios. He is currently Director and Consulting Producer of CBC’s acclaimed Arts series In The Making.

Gloria Ui Young Kim

Born in Seoul, Korea, writer/director Gloria Ui Young Kim comes from a long line of media makers. She recently directed, wrote and produced her first feature, Queen Of The Morning Calm. Her last short Flamenco, won the 2017 Corus Fearless Female Filmmaker Award. She was chosen by Women in View as one of the 2017 Five in Focus, and is on the Board of Directors for Women in Film and Television-Toronto.