Boards & Staff

Sylvia D. Hamilton is an award-winning Nova Scotian filmmaker and writer known for the documentaries Portia White: Think on Me, The Little Black School House and Black Mother Black Daughter, among others. She is the author of the poetry collection And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, a finalist for the Nova Scotia Masterworks Award and the 2015 League of Canadian Poets Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her new collection titled Tender was released in October 2022. Hamilton’s multi-media installations have shown at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Dalhousie Art Gallery, among other venues. She received the 2019 Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media and the 2021 Luminary Award given by the Documentary Organization of Canada’s Doc Institute. For many years she taught documentary survey and production courses in the Journalism School of the University of King’s College in Halifax where she is now an Inglis Professor Emeritus.

Marie Nelson is a media veteran with decades of experience in independent documentary film, news, and broadcasting. She's held senior positions at American networks, including most recently as Senior Vice President at ABC News/Disney where she led a brand and content strategy that pioneered and developed inclusive and diverse-led content for television, streaming and film audiences. In addition to her extensive media experience, Ms. Nelson has served with government, non-profit and development organizations, including serving in two U.S. presidential administrations. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. in Political Science and Women’s Studies from Duke University. Her work has been recognized by Emmy, Peabody, Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and NAACP Image awards.

Born in Toronto and raised internationally, Hussain Currimbhoy is a film producer, director and film curator with works spanning documentary and fiction film since 2002. Hussain is executive producer for feature documentaries such as And, Towards Happy Alleys (Berlinale, CPH:DOX), Praying For Armageddon (CPH:DOX), Tomorrow’s Freedom (Sheffield DocFest) and The Beloved (Melbourne International Film Festival). As a film programmer, Hussain has worked for film and industry events around the world including Sundance Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, Melbourne International Film Festival, Nordisk Panorama Film Festival, Doc 10, and the Red Sea International Film Festival.  In 2023, Hussain created and launched the Gåsebäck Film Festival, an independent film event in Helsingborg, Sweden that is dedicated to showcasing international cinema, regional short films and filmmaker masterclasses. 

Heather was a Senior International Programmer at Hot Docs; she wrote and produced three award-winning feature docs of which two are co-productions with Mexico, she is an international programmer for imagineNATIVE, AluCine, and is a reader for Chicken & Egg. Since the 90s, she has maintained relationships with the Mexican art and film world, extending to Central and South America where she travels for festivals, juries and WIP labs. In addition to film, she has a long history of producing innovative, politically charged projects in visual/performance art and theatre focusing on social justice content to inspire meaningful dialogues with audiences. Heather is the founder and former ED/AD of Toronto Free Gallery, and Culture Storm, both organizations focused on artists like James Luna and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. She is also the former publisher of Fuse Magazine and a founding collective member and producer of Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto. She is a single mom to an amazing young woman.

Alex Rogalski is the Senior Canadian Programmer for Hot Docs and has been working with the festival since 2010. His programming career has focused on documentary and Canadian cinema for festivals across the country including TIFF, Calgary International Film Festival, Human Rights Watch, Victoria Film Festival, Gimme Some Truth, and others. He holds a Masters in Communication and Culture, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film, and has written for publications including POV magazine.

Mariam Zaidi is a filmmaker, film programmer, and arts administrator based in Toronto. She moved to Canada on her own 17 years ago, prompted by an interest in filmmaking. Struggling as a newcomer to find her footing motivated her to work in organizations that supported the growth of emerging artists and to find spaces that had a focus on gender equity and better inclusion in screen-based media. She has previously held the roles of executive director at the Breakthroughs Film Festival and managing director at the Toronto Animated Image Society. Today, Mariam lives and works in Toronto as an independent filmmaker, and as a film programmer at Hot Docs and Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.

Yiqian Zhang is an independent Toronto-based filmmaker who has Canadian and international experience in both the festival and broadcast fields. She recently managed the Hot Docs Film Funds where she oversaw Hot Docs’ portfolio of documentary film funds for Canadian and international documentary films. She was co-producer on Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s Academy-award-winning documentary American Factory, which sold to Netflix and launched worldwide. She also worked on various productions as producer, associate producer, line producer, field producer, and consultant, including Academy shortlisted documentary, Violet Du Feng’s Hidden Letters. Prior to re-locating to North America, she worked at China Central Television’s (CCTV) Documentary Channel as project manager in the international co-production department. Currently, she is producing The Fruit is Ripe for Yuqi Kang and Breaking the Wall for Weichao Xu.

Aisha Jamal started programming at small, community-based festivals. She has been working as Canadian Programmer at Hot Docs since 2016. In 2019, she worked as Programming Associate for Canadian and Nordic features at TIFF and for four years she was Head of Programming at the Syria Film Festival. She also teaches film theory and criticism while working on her own film projects.  
 

Angie Driscoll brings over two decades of film programming expertise to her work as Senior International Programmer and Senior Shorts Programmer at Hot Docs. She has selected films for a variety of international film festivals including Aspen Shorts fest, Nordisk Panorama, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film Festival and the Toronto Urban Film Festival. She has curated films online for BBC LongShots and Babelgum and consulted for the Sundance Film Festival, Reel Canada and the Prism Prize. Currently, she works with the Athena Film Festival, Palm Springs Short Fest and Op-Docs for the New York Times in the US, Midtnorsk Filmsenter and Minimalen Kortfilmfestival in Norway, and Magnetfilm in Germany, to bring more documentaries and short films to larger audiences online and in real life.

Samah Ali is a VR and film programmer based in Toronto and New York City. A lover of documentaries, she currently programs for Academy Award qualifying festivals Seattle International Film Festival, DOC NYC, and Hot Docs Film Festival. After running her startup Sisterhood Media for five years, she now sits on the Board of Directors at The Black Screen Office and Future of Film Showcase. You can interact with her on X @sistersamah.

Lucila Moctezuma is an international festival programmer and a consultant to documentary filmmakers and media organizations worldwide, with a focus on story and creative authorship with filmmakers, and program design/implementation and story workshops with media organizations. She is senior consultant of artist programs at Points North Institute, international programmer for Hot Docs, and a member of Morelia International Film Festival’s doc programming committee. Other consulting work includes the Sundance Documentary Film Program, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and Multitude Films, and story workshops with the Bronx Documentary Center and BAVC. She has held senior positions with Chicken & Egg Pictures, UnionDocs, Women Make Movies, Media Arts Fellowships for The Rockefeller Foundation, and founded the TFI Latin America Fund for Tribeca Film Institute. Lucila is a 2019 Ford Foundation/Rockwood Leadership Institute JustFilms fellow and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Gabor Pertic attended the University of Toronto as a Specialist in Cinema Studies, graduating with an Honours B.A. After working as a film critic in Toronto, he transitioned into the world of film festival programming. For several years, he worked in the programming department of the Toronto International Film Festival. In addition to TIFF, Gabor was executive director of the Breakthroughs Film Festival and documentary programmer for the Reykjavik International Film Festival. For the majority of his career, Gabor has been working for North America’s largest Documentary-exclusive film festival Hot Docs, in the roles of Senior Programming Coordinator and International Programmer.

Gugi Gumilang is currently based in Jakarta and Berlin, where he is appointed as executive director for the award-winning organization In-Docs—the non-profit behind Docs by the Sea, Good Pitch Asia and VitaminDocs. Moreover, the Documentary of Association of Europe (DAE) has elected him to its Executive Board since 2022. His work includes mentoring and consulting on projects and impact campaign strategies. He has also often delivered talks about equitable international co-production practices with a focus on Asia. As part of his diverse experience, Gugi has been involved as a film curator, guest programmer, selection committee member, and jury member for several reputable regional and international film festivals and film funds, including IDA, DOK Leipzig, Sunny Side of the Doc, Cannes Docs, IDFA Forum, RIDM, CPH:DOX, Points North Institute, Dokufest, and more.

Kaitlynn Tomaselli is Anishinaabe and Italian from Manitoulin Island. As an emerging curator and arts administrator, she currently works for the world’s largest presenter of Indigenous screen content, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts. At imagineNATIVE, Kaitlynn manages all artistic programming for year-round and festival events both for community and youth initiatives. Before her time at imagineNATIVE, she worked with Debajehmujig Theatre Group, The Sudbury Theatre Centre, and Native Earth Performing Arts. Kaitlynn is passionate about collaborating with organizations and people who uplift Indigenous voices and expressions. Throughout her experiences within the arts, she has been honoured with the opportunity to connect artists through theatre, film, and media arts.

Vivian Belik is a documentary producer, programmer, writer and arts administrator who has curated and juried works for film festivals across Canada including the Available Light Film Festival, National Screen Institute and Gimli Film Festival. She currently works as part of the year-round programming team at TIFF Cinematheque and is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Documentary Media Program. She's a first generation Canadian and is proud of her Brazilian roots.

Margaret Pereira is a fiction and documentary programmer based out of Toronto, Ontario. As the Discovery Programme Associate at the Toronto International Film Festival, she focuses primarily on first- and second-time filmmakers of Eastern and Central Europe, as well as Turkey, France, Italy, and Iran. In 2023, she assisted in programming a series for the MAST Museum and Foundation in Bologna, Italy. The series was created alongside the MAST Photography Grant on Industry and Work, an exhibit highlighting various forms of labour and the rapidly changing scope of the job market internationally. She is passionate about programming films from first-time filmmakers, under-represented regions, and cinema that challenges audience expectations. This is her first year at Hot Docs.

Jesse Cumming works primarily as a freelance programmer and consultant for a number of different international festivals, and is also a lecturer, writer, editor, publicist, and more. His tastes and interests extend beyond documentary features, with an ongoing commitment to international arthouse narrative features and shorts. Beyond cinema, Jesse spends as much time engaging with contemporary art, literature, and music. The interest in contemporary art is of particular relevance to Markers, where he is eager to bridge film and art divides. While Jess has no traditional regional specialty—and enjoys engaging with works from around the world—he is particularly interested in works from Southeast and East Asia, SWANA, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and Canada.