Select producers from across Canada are heading west to participate in the fifth annual CFC GO WEST Project Lab.
Presented by the Whistler Film Festival in association with Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Film Centre's CFC GO WEST Project Lab is an intense five day business and marketplace immersion experience held in Whistler June 26 to 30th, 2011.
Now open to all Canadian producers (previous Labs were for western based producers only), the Project Lab helps push a producer's dramatic feature project, facilitating relationships, collaboration and investment in film projects that have US and international appeal.
Industry experts participating in the CFC GO WEST Project Lab include: David Dinerstein - President, D² Films; Junie Lowry-Johnson - Casting Director, Junie Lowry-Johnson Casting; Bob Aaronson - Acquisitions Consultant, Universal Studios Home Entertainment/Universal Pictures International Entertainment; Hal Sadoff - Head of International Film & Independent Film, ICM; Brian O'Shea - Distribution Consultant, Helios Productions and Matt Kaplan - Vice President of Development & Production, Lionsgate.
Also returning this year as Marketplace Facilitators are Peter Wetherell - President, Magus Entertainment and Nancy Collet - President, Cinema Collet.
Launched in 2007, the CFC GO WEST Project Lab has attracted many of North America's leading sales, packaging and distribution executives. Each producer receives specific project feedback from US/International marketplace experts in order to strengthen the producer's ability to position their project for investment. To date, 27 producers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia have benefited from invaluable strategic advice from 40 industry experts.
"Telefilm Canada is proud to have been a key industry partner of the CFC GO WEST Project Lab since its inception" said John Dippong, Interim Regional Director of Business Development in Telefilm's Western Region office. "GO WEST provides producers with a unique, immersive learning and relationship-building experience that just isn't replicated anywhere else. It's a high-octane informational kick-start for all of the projects chosen to participate."
The six producers include:
Producer E Jane Thompson, with the psychological thriller The Berliner Complex, written by Katherine Collins
Producer Cher Hawrysh, with the comedy/drama Bitter Pills written by Garfield Lindsay Miller
Producer Corey Marr, with the buddy comedy SUMMERTEETH, written by Matthew Bissonnette
Producer Tony Wosk, with the romantic comedy Night Deposit, written by Monika Mitchell
Producers Jessica Cheung and Amy Belling, with the psychological thriller Wisteria, written by AJ Bond.
The Whistler Film Festival and CFC acknowledge the support and commitment to the GO WEST Project Lab, presented in association with Telefilm Canada and sponsored by Astral's Harold Greenberg Fund, BC Film, Empire Theatres, The Westin Resort and Spa Whistler and the Canadian Media Production Association- BC Producers' Branch.