Mark Haslam Award Winner

Tea Creek by Ryan Dickie

Green Pitch Winner

Becoming A Landscape by Emily Graves

Best Canadian Feature Jury 

Jean-Philippe Marquis

Jean-Philippe Marquis is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in British Columbia. His work as a director is often non-linear, contemplative and explores themes of contested geographies and resource extraction. He produced and directed Silvicola, which won the John Kastner Award at Hot Docs 2023, Best Canadian Film at Planet in Focus 2023, and Best Environmental Film at VIMFF 2024. Jean-Philippe often works as a cinematographer, director or editor on francophone and bilingual productions for Radio-Canada, Unis TV, TFO and TV5, and received a Leo Award for best cinematography on a documentary series (2018). He holds degrees in journalism from Concordia University and anthropology from Université de Montréal.

Sidney JANG

JANG majored in communication at Busan National University and graduated from Sejong University Graduate School of Performing Arts with a multimedia animation. She is a festival programmer and culture designer with over 20 years of experience at a number of cultural events and film festivals including Expo 2012 Yeosu Korea organizing committee, Seoul International Community Orchestra Festival, Jeonju Int’l Film Festival, Bucheon Int’l Fantastic Film Festival, Seoul Int’l Food Film Festival, Blue Planet Future Festival and Seoul Eco Film Festival.

Joan Prowse

As a documentary filmmaker, television producer and digital media creator, Joan is passionate to tell stories that entertain and inspire change. She co-founded CineFocus Canada to tell these these stories worldwide and to deliver them on accessible platforms.

Joan is a writer, director, and editor known for the international documentary “Beauty and the Beach” and the Juno-nominated “Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life.” Her series “Green Heroes” received nominations at the Banff World Media Festival and nextMedia, produced across multiple platforms with TVO and the Bell Fund. An alumnus of several prestigious programs, she is a member of the Writers Guild of Canada and served as a jury member at this year’s Banff World Media Festival Rockie Awards. Joan’s environmental commitment includes her board role at the Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival (2010-2017) and training as a Climate Reality Leader. Her current documentary, “A Watershed Moment,” explores the restoration of a campus parking lot to its original wetland state after 60 years.

Best International Feature Film Jury

Dane Dodds

Dane Dodds is a multi award winning film-maker, born and raised on a farm in the Karoo, South Africa. He is the founder, CEO, and director of MED CINE ApS, a Danish/South African film production house. With a career spanning 15 years, his work focuses on healing, exploration and the relationship between science, culture, land and the legacy of colonialism and his own ancestors. Throughout his career, Dane has overseen the production of thousands of media projects. He is now fully dedicated to documentaries, excelling in navigating challenging territories to create films with the highest level of integrity and virtue. He currently lives and works between South Africa and Denmark.

Juliana Paniagua

Director and co-founder of the Barichara Green Film Festival – Festiver, the first and largest environmental film festival in Colombia. Colombian cultural manager, event coordinator, translator, and subtitler.

Lauren Howes

Lauren Howes (non-binary) was appointed Managing Director of the Doc Institute in June 2023. Howes has more than 20 years of Executive not-for-profit management experience. Previous to joining Doc Institute they were the long serving Executive Director at Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (2006-2021), and Executive Director at Inside Out Festival (2021-2022). Over the past decade Howes has served the Arts Community sitting on the boards of the Toronto Arts Council, the Media Arts Network of Ontario, nationally with the Independent Media Arts Alliance, the former Toronto Media Arts Centre (TMAC) and for the streaming platform vucavu.com. Howes has also participated on juries with the OAC, TAC, Canada Council and numerous film festivals. Through their work in distribution Howes has extensively promoted Canadian Media Art, film and documentary to markets and festivals across Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia.

Best Canadian Short Film Jury

Isabella DiBernardo

Isabella DiBernardo is a Canadian filmmaker and producer from Toronto based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In addition to a BA Honours in Film and Media Studies from Queen’s University, her work has taken her abroad as a Development Producer for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Her greatest passion as a producer is overseeing the development of projects. Whether that be narrative film, television, or film institutional, Isabella elevates each project she works on through her keenness and understanding of the industry. At IDFA, she leads the production of projects and events catered to key international industry players. Isabella’s background is in film production as a script supervisor and producer, having worked on films that have been screened at Image + National Montréal, Beyond the Short, and Kingston Canadian Film Festival.

Marc Glassman

Marc Glassman is an arts journalist, film programmer, teacher, former bookseller and cultural impresario. Marc is Classical 96.3FM’s film critic, the Editor-in-chief of POV (Point of View) Canada’s leading periodical on documentary culture and a board member of the Toronto Film Critics Association. Marc was the first film programmer for Hot Docs and one of the founders of the Images Festival. He’s programmed at the National Film Board, Harbourfront Centre, and was the Senior Programmer for five years at the Planet in Focus. Marc taught photographic and cinematic history to graduate students at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Masters of Documentary Media program for nearly a decade.

Marc was honoured with the Toronto Arts Award in literature in 2000, the Tom Berner Prize for support of independent filmmaking in 2003, and the Doc Luminary Award from the Documentary Organization of Canada’s “Doc Institute” in 2016.

Anthony Truong Swan

As the Impact Director of Story Money Impact, Anthony Truong Swan works with social justice and environmental documentaries to develop partnerships across all sectors of civil society, helping to put relevant issues-based films on the front lines of creating social impact.

With a decade of experience organizing, executing, moderating and evaluating film screening events and panel discussions across Canada both virtually and in-person, Anthony brings agility and care developed in his time as Festival Director of REEL CANADA’s RCtv, Our Films in Our Schools and Welcome to Canada programmes.

Best International Short Film Jury

Caroline Bacle

Born in Montreal, now based in the UK, Caroline Bacle is a seasoned documentary filmmaker who has directed for the likes of BBC, Channel 4, Sky, CBC, and PBS. Her feature documentary LOST RIVERS won the Planet in Focus Best Canadian Feature Film Honourable Mention in 2012 and has been screened in over 100 festivals worldwide. Her film I WON’T STAND FOR IT received the Planet in Focus International Short Film Award in 2023.

Eleonora Isunza

She has worked at the Morelos Radio and Television Institute since 1988 as a writer, producer, and presenter of several radio and television programs. In 2009 she co-founded Cinema Planeta, the International Film and Environmental Festival of Mexico, which she co-directs since then. She is co-founder and president of the Green Film Network where 32 festivals from 30 countries participate. She co-produced and co-directed her first feature films “Nahui Ollin, Sol de Movimiento” and “Mar Incendiado” which both draw attention to the impacts of climate change in Mexico. In collaboration with several activists, she managed to change the law of solid waste to prohibit single-use plastic and polystyrene in Morelos and 28 states. She works at the Secretariat of Culture in Morelos.

Will Jameson

Will is responsible for producing One World Media’s flagship event, the One World Media Awards, the OWM Global Reporting Summit happening in Nairobi and London this year and the organization’s year-round events programme. He has worked in events and festivals for over twenty years mainly in the UK and Africa. He founded the award winning Lake of Stars Festival in Malawi and has gone on to create other festivals in southern Africa including a Day of Ideas with the EU, the Children’s Future Festival with UNICEF and the Lilongwe Shorts Film Festival. He has organised a peace concert in South Sudan, music tours from South Africa to Mozambique and launched NGO Girl Effect’s youth brand across Malawi with a series of music videos, workshops, screenings and roadshows. 

Mark Haslam Award Jury

Julian Carrington

Planet in Focus Programmer

Julian Carrington is a freelance writer and film programmer based in Toronto. He has contributed to publications including The Globe & Mail, Indiewire, and Cinema Scope, and, in 2014, served as a programming associate with the Toronto International Film Festival. In 2015, he became manger of the Documentary Organization of Canada’s Festival Concierge initiative, supporting filmmakers in developing distribution and audience engagement strategies. Julian joined Planet in Focus as the festival’s associate programmer in 2016.

Lesley Johnson

Planet in Focus Programmer

Lesley Johnson is a director, producer and programmer, based in Toronto and Yellowknife. She studied Film Production in York University’s MFA program, and holds degrees in wildlife and environmental sciences. Before becoming a filmmaker, she worked in community-based research in the Northwest Territories, and on studies chasing after the likes of terns and wolverines. She is the former director and programmer of the Yellowknife International Film Festival, and of a Cinema Politica chapter.