The Benefit of the Connections at Toronto Film School: Guest Blog By Christopher Lane
The Toronto Film School has a rich history of partnering, associating and collaborating with some of the most talented individuals and creative film industry entities the world has to offer. Of course, the city of Toronto is part of what makes our school so unique. From our participation in TIFF initiated events, Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, ACTRA, IATSE, REEL CANADA, all the studios, locations, post-production companies, post-audio companies, charities the community, and the City of Toronto itself, our students have plenty of opportunities to immerse themselves in all of what the Toronto film industry has to offer. One of the greatest benefits happens to be the vast connections as well as some of the companies that are owned and operated by some of our amazing instructors, and in many cases go on to recruit our students and graduates.
One of these relationships is with the powerhouse duo Raven Banner Releasing and Northern Banner Releasing, distribution arms of the Toronto-based company Raven Banner Entertainment. Raven Banner compelling genre films from around the world with such recent releases as Wyrmwood (2014), Turbo Kid (2015), Borealis (2015), American Conjuring (2016) and Todd and the Book of Pure Evil (2016) is well known for the film festival and film market circuits, making yearly appearances at TIFF, Cannes, The American Film Market, Hong Kong Filmart and EFM Berlin, Sundance to name but a few, where this decade-old company has made million dollar deals and picked up some of the world’s best horror, science fiction, drama and action films.
Many of their recent films have gone on to critical acclaim, and are generating high praise from the industry making regular appearances in Playback magazine, Variety and other publications and mentions on television shows like Entertainment Tonight. Making an appearance this award season, their film A Date With Miss Fortune (2016) just picked up an Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Award nomination along with their TIFF debuted Hello, Destroyer (2016) which picked up a hefty four nominations at the ACCTs. These nominations sit alongside their critically-acclaimed film from the 2016 Oscars Embrace of the Serpent (2015) which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. Their newest success making the news is the Emile Hirsch horror-thriller The Autopsy of Jane Doe released theatrically late 2016. This film, released less than a month ago has garnered the attention of major celebrities, including horror writer Stephen King who tweeted out the praise, actor of Star Trek fame George Takei and award-winning director and writer Guillermo del Toro to name a few. Shock Rocker and horror aficionado Alice Cooper even got into the action suggesting Raven Banner films as his Netflix choices.
The Toronto Film School has deep rooted connections to Raven Banner, proudly calling Managing Partner Michael Paszt, who has long been a part of our selection committee for the 5th Term thesis projects, and General Manager Michaelangelo Masangkay are two of our elite Instructors. Their impressive bio’s can be found on the Toronto Film School faculty page. Furthermore, Raven Banner has a long track record of employing Toronto Film School graduates including 2015 TFS Distinguished Filmmaker Award recipient, Anelle Dehghani, who was snatched up byRaven Banner to handle their distribution, namely film assets and VOD, department.
According to Masangkay “Anelle has been a valuable addition to theRaven Banner team, her training at the Toronto Film School has made her uniquely equipped to handle the high paced environment of film distribution business”.
Other Toronto Film School alumni include Andrew Step, Michelle Long and much more. Several current and former students can also be found contributing to the RB run online news magazine The Cinemachina, and the online streaming platform Raven banner releasing.
This is just a taste of the incredible partnerships and relationships that theToronto Film School has to offer. Our students have opportunities for success right in front of them, lecturing every day.
Christopher Lane is an instructor in the Film Production Diploma Program at Toronto Film School. He is a writer, producer and director who has been working in the film industry for more than 20 years.
