February Spotlight | Amazing TFS Alumni Accomplishments
At Toronto Film School, we’re continually astounded by the amazing accomplishments of our awesome alumni – be it working on Oscar-nominated films, appearing in Super Bowl ads, winning screenwriting fellowships, or directing Team Canada Olympic ads.
Here are some of February’s standout highlights from Toronto Film School’s talented community of graduates:
A trio of alumni including Laura Loaiza (Film Production ’17), Spencer Gray (Film Production’08) and Kim Janveau (Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre ’19) worked on Guillermo del Toro’s Academy Award-nominated film, Nightmare Alley – Loaiza as a camera trainee, Gray as a data management technician and Janveau as an actor. The film, which stars Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper and Toni Collette, has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Motion Picture, Cinematography, Production Design and Costume Design.
Class of 2004 Film Production grad Shreeharsha Rao continues his three-year streak of working on Oscar-nominated films for his work on two-time 2022 nominee, Cruella. Rao worked as the Central Production Manager at MPC Film, the company that provided VFX for the film. He also worked on the 2020 Oscar-nominated VFX team behind 1917 and 2021-nominated The One and Only Ivan. Cruella was nominated in two categories for the upcoming 2022 Oscars: Costume Design and Makeup & Hairstyling.
Kearsten Johansson, who not only teaches Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre at TFS but is also a 2014 graduate of the program, recently appeared in the above Roku commercial during the Super Bowl.
Johansson also teamed up with fellow Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre alumnus-turned instructor Chad Tailor (producer) on her recently wrapped solo directorial debut, Straw Man – a short featuring a cast and crew comprising 99 per cent of TFS students and alumni. Read more about that project here: https://bit.ly/3I1GI7n
Class of 2019 Film Production grad Cheyenne “Casper” Lynn was recently selected as one of five winners of the GBH Kids Scriptwriting Fellowship – a program created by Boston pubcaster GBH that aims to bring BIPOC creatives into the script development process on kids shows, while providing a hands-on learning experience. Lynn and their fellow winners will now have the opportunity to contribute to the up-and-coming new animated series Work It Out Wombats! (2023). Lynn previously won one of five 2020 Magee TV Diverse Screenwriters Mentorship Awards. Read more about that experience here: https://bit.ly/2YK2mYo
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Tim Myles (Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre ’16) recently followed up his TIFF-debuted short film, Little Bird, by stepping into the 2nd unit director’s chair for the above stunning Lulu Lemon/Team Canada commercial for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Violation, the feature film debut of Toronto Film School instructors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, was recently nominated in several different categories at Fangoria magazine’s upcoming Chainsaw Awards, including Best Streaming-Premiere Movie, Best Screenplay and Best Lead Performance for Sims-Fewer. The film’s crew featured several TFS alumni, including Marie-Soleil Kielec as 1st AD, Becky Yeboah as Line Producer, Artem Mykhailetskyi as Assistant Camera, Noemie Spor as Production Coordinator, as well as Jay Graves and Alex Nicolescu. Read about Kielec’s experience shooting the film here: https://bit.ly/33zxzjn
Class of 2015 Writing for Film & Television grad Andrew Di Pardo’s upcoming, 3-episode limited documentary series, The Minds Eye, is scheduled to debut on Vimeo in March. Di Pardo was also recently named a Key Set Monitor at Walt Disney’s Atlanta studios, and worked as 1st AD on a short film called DOXXED, featuring Charlie Barnett (Arrow, Ordinary Joe). You can read more about his post-TFS story here: https://bit.ly/33FlUAr
***Are you an alumnus or student who would like to share your latest accomplishment with the TFS community? If so, please reach out to our Alumni Relations Coordinator at alumni@torontofilmschool.ca
