National Gathering of Latin Canadian Filmmakers
Panel: New Generations + New Definitions
Saturday, May 13
1 PM to 2:30 PM
Maison de développement durable (Salle Clark), 50 Ste-Catherine Ouest
Facilitated by Darien S. Nicolas, this panel will introduce the film and media art practices of Samay Arcentales Cajas, Gio Olmos and Tamara Segura, and will open up to wider discussion of how a new generation of Latin Canadian filmmakers is navigating the landscape and the creating new definitions.
Animé par Darien S. Nicolas, ce panel présentera les travaux artistiques de Samay Arcentales Cajas, Gio Olmos et Tamara Segura, et ouvrira une discussion plus large à propos de la nouvelle génération de cinéastes latinx-canadiens qui naviguent sur la scène et créent de nouvelles définitions.
Samay Arcentales Cajas is a Toronto-based queer Kichwa digital media artist exploring human-land relations, the new media dimensions of indigenous cosmology, and immersive art as a site of liberation. Her works have been shown at ImagineNATIVE, Xpace Cultural Centre, Mayworks Festival, Tarragon Theatre, TQFF, among others.
Samay has also facilitated film programs at Sketch Working Arts, and Charles Street Video, where she currently works as program coordinator. Samay works as a video designer and install technician for artists and filmmakers across the country. | samaycajas.com
Gio Olmos (they/them) was born in Mexico City. They immigrated to Montreal in 2006 at the age of 10. They graduated from Concordia University’s film production program in 2018. Their film Silvia in the Waves (2017) has been programmed by more than 40 festivals including Vimeo’s staff picks. In 2017, they shot Dulce Hogar in their native Mexico City, guerilla style. The film won the Best Foreign Director Award at the BFI’s 2019 Future Film Festival. In 2019, they sat on the jury for the 32nd edition of the Montreal Image+Nation Festival. As a cultural worker, Gio has joined the teams of festivals and nonprofits in the capacity of event organizer, grant writer, communications swiss-knife and accomplice. In 2020, they were awarded with the Writers Guild of Canada prize at the Cours Écrire ton Court competition organized by SODEC. The Canadian Academy of Cinema & Television gave them the opportunity to intern with the short-film distribution company Travelling throughout 2022. They are currently developing shorts and features about astral projection, axolotl mutants, extractivism and friendship. | olmosfilm.com
Tamara Segura is a Cuban-Canadian Filmmaker. She graduated with honours in Film Direction from the Cuban Instituto Superior de Arte and later specialized in screenwriting at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV de San Antonio de los Baños (EICTV). Her 2009 short drama Fireflies won the Martin Luther King Award to Best Short Film of the year, given by the Cuban Young Filmmakers Association. Her first feature-length screenplay The Sunflowers was selected for the prestigious Foundation Carolina Script Development Program in Spain. In 2010, Tamara won a federal fellowship at Concordia University to conduct research about the representation of motherhood in the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Based in Newfoundland since 2012, Tamara has been awarded the 2013 RBC Michelle Jackson Award to Best Emerging Female Filmmaker for her film Before the War. Her second Canadian short film, Song for Cuba (2017) was produced by the NFB selected for the Busan International Short Film festival. More recently, Tamara co-directed Becoming Labrador (2019), a feature-length documentary produced NFB that won a Jury Special Mention in the Construir Cine Festival in Argentina. Her short film C Sharp and D Suspended (2018), one of the finalists of the CBC Short Film Face Off contest, premiered at the Atlantic International Film Festival and is currently available in CBC Gem. This summer, Tamara completed her MFA in Film Production at York University. Her thesis film Father Figures, has been acquired by USA based distribution company 7Palms Entertainment. | tamarasegura.com
Darien S. Nicolas, (He/Him-They/Them) (La Habana, 1983) received their doctorate from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University, Montreal in 2022. They work as a part-time instructor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Concordia University and the John Abbott College in Montréal. They have been also an art curator and film programmer for institutions such as the Misrachi Art Gallery in Mexico City, the Consulate General of Mexico in Montreal, the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the LatinArte Festival and others. Their dissertation interrogated the roles of Cuban domesticity and latinidad in Québécois transnational film productions and global tourism.