Awards and Juries 2012
Planet in Focus 2012 Festival Awards
Best Canadian Short Film Award (under 40 minutes)
 |
The Pipedreams Project |
Honourable Mention: Spoke
Best Canadian Feature Film Award (over 40 minutes)
 |
Occupy Love |
Honourable Mention: Lost Rivers
Best International Short Film Award (under 40 minutes)
 |
Hot and Bothered |
Best International Feature Film Award (over 40 minutes)
 |
Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth |
The Mark Haslam Award
 |
Rainforest: The Limit of Splendour |
Honourable Mention: Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws
This award was established in honour of Mark Haslam, the founder of Planet in Focus. The award is given to any drama, documentary or experimental film programmed in the Festival that gives voice to individuals, communities,struggles or stories that are under-represented in the media and is made by a filmmaker who is a member or participant in that community, struggle or story. The selected work demonstrates the power to inspire reflection and positive action towards the social and ecological health of the planet.
Industry Series Awards
The Green Pitch Award
This annual award is presented to a filmmaker who has made an outstanding pitch at our competition on Friday, October 12 (see p. 107). The award is valued at over $10,000 in funding
and services and is intended to support the development of a new project. The award is sponsored by CBC The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, PS Production Services, Fearless
Films, Precision Transfer, Wallace Studios, Vistek and The Source Shop.
Winner: Honey for Sale, Amanda Strong & Jeremy Edwardes
Read about all pitched films here.
Planet in Focus Green Screen Award
The Green Screen Award sponsored by Astral’s Harold Greenberg Fund (see p. 108) is presented to a filmmaker or producer who has taken behind-the-scenes action to incorporate environmentally friendly film production practices into their film or television production. The award will be given to the most inspiring story and production that has had results in reducing their environmental footprint. The winner will receive a $5,000 cash award and the runner-up $1,000.
Winner: Warehouse 13
Honourable Mention: In Organic We Trust
Planet in Focus Eco Heroes
Each year, Planet in Focus honours inspiring individuals who have made a difference to the environment, globally and within their communities, through their actions and body of work.
Planet in Focus Eco Heroes are beacons of change and we honour their spirit, their dedication and their ability to inspire. This year we are pleased to present Jennifer Baichwal with the Canadian Eco Hero Award and James Balog with the International Eco Hero Award. The 2012 Planet in Focus Eco Hero Awards are sponsored by Esri Canada.
Planet in Focus 2012 Festival Film Juries
Canadian Jury
Emily Hunter
Emily Hunter is a Toronto-based environmental activist, filmmaker and author of the book The Next Eco-Warriors. Daughter of the first President of Greenpeace, she was born into the environmental movement and is ready to start her own generation’s eco-revolution.
Kerry Potts
Kerry Potts (Teme-Augama Anishnaabe) is an Aboriginal arts advocate and educator. Potts served as Director of Development and part of the Programming Team at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. She is currently a contributor to the online interactive indigenous news site Media Indigena and a teacher in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Department at Humber College.
Bay Weyman
Bay Weyman is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker with more than 25 years experience in writing, producing, directing and shooting documentary films through his production company Close Up Films (Finding Fidel: The Journey of Erik Durschmied, Road to Baleya, Spirits of Havana).
International Jury
Juan Baquero
Juan Baquero is a Toronto-based director (Listen to This), story consultant and associate international programmer at Hot Docs. His work has been shown by major broadcasters including Discovery Channel and TVO and screened in film festivals all over the world.
Atom Cianfarani
For the past decade, Atom Cianfarani has been a leader in sustainable design. Her company Gaelyn and Cianfarani was the first design team to show an eco-fashion collection in Bryant Park, NYC. Recently she worked with Stella McCartney and PETA to develop a faux bear fur Beef Eater cap for the British Ministry of Defence. Cianfarani is currently working in the green roof industry.
Priya Rao
Priya Rao is a Toronto-based filmmaker (Raju’s Blind Date) and film programmer. She is currently Director of Marketing for the First Weekend Club, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people discover Canadian film. Her latest projects are the short film Best, April, and a feature, Kush Kush in the Bush.
Industry Award Juries
The Green Pitch Jury
Alison Duke
Alison Duke is an acclaimed producer of drama, documentary and TV. Her credits include Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home (2007), My Joan of Arc
(2011) and the recently commissioned Positive Women: Exposing Injustice (2012) by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, which was officially selected for the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington D.C.
Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis is the President and General Manager of Discovery Networks. He is responsible for all day-to-day operations, including programming, production and marketing, as well as business and strategic planning. In addition to Discovery Channel, he also oversees operations for four additional channels: Discovery World HD, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Discovery Science and their associated websites. Lewis is also responsible for a production company, Exploration Production Inc., which makes and distributes award-winning documentaries for the international market.
Caroline Underwood
Caroline Underwood is a Senior Producer at the CBC Documentary Science & Natural History Unit. Its flagship program, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, is an award-winning series broadcast across Canada and many countries around the world. It explores issues, discoveries and events in the worlds of science, medicine, technology, wildlife and the environment.
The Planet in Focus Green Screen Award Jury
Keir Brownstone
Keir Brownstone is the General Manager of GLOBE Inc. a subsidiary of Social Housing Services Corporation. Prior to joining GLOBE, he was the Green
Plan Manager for Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC). Before joining TCHC, Brownstone was the General Manager of Green Saver, a leader in residential and small business energy efficiency in the Greater Toronto Region helping to develop programs such as Energuide for Houses, Home Rewards, Home Rewards for Affordable Housing and Go Low Flow.
John Galway
John Galway’s 20-year career in the Canadian film and television industry began with a position at the Toronto International Film Festival. As President of The Harold Greenberg Fund at Astral Media, he has been involved with investments of more than $20 million in support of Canadian writers, directors, producers and performers.
Ziya Tong
Gemini-nominated Ziya Tong is co-host of Daily Planet, Canada’s daily science show. She has also hosted the CBC’s Emmy-nominated series ZeD, Wired
Science, CTV’s Island Escapes and The Leading Edge, which she wrote and directed. Tong served as senior producer for Orientation.com, launched the Ethical Media Division for Cowie and Fox Creative, and is currently on the Board of Directors of WWF (World Wildlife Fund).
