Trailblazers

Tushar Unadkat

Internationally celebrated CEO and Creative Director of MUKTA Advertising, Tushar Unadkat holds a Master in Design degree from University of Dundee, Scotland and Honors in Photography from University of Wolverhampton, England. In the past decade, Tushar has executed art direction in the film, fashion, advertising and events industry in USA, England, Scotland, France, Germany, Netherlands, India and Canada. Winning 14 international awards, he has worked with OSCAR winning producers and editors in the past as the Production Designer making a significant name in the Western Cross-Over Film-Industry and earning credits on more than 25 feature films in his portfolio.

Shernold Edwards

Shernold has roots in both half hour comedies and hour long dramas. She was a co-producer on CTV’s The Listener, and an ESE on Shawmedia’s cop drama Shattered. She was also the co-executive producer of season two of the half-hour comedy ‘Da Kink In My Hair, and wrote for the youth series Instant Star. Shernold was previously a production and development executive at CTV where her projects included the Gemini Award-winning Doomstown, and Last Exit. Shernold attended the Canadian Film Centre’s Professional Screenwriting Program (aka ‘Bootcamp’) and has an MFA in screenwriting from Columbia University. She was a participant of 2007 TIFF Talent Lab, and attended the 2008 Banff Television Festival as a participant of the Canwest Showrunner Program. In 2008, Shernold was featured as one of Playback Magazine’s Next 25. Shernold is currently writing an adaptation of the acclaimed novel A Day Late and A Dollar Short, by Terry McMillan (Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back) for Ostar Enterprises and Lifetime. She is represented by Elizabeth Newman and Rob Kenneally of CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, and Elina Levina of Harrison Artists Management in Toronto.

Lisa Jackson

A 2011 Genie Award winner, Lisa Jackson has a background in documentary filmmaking, which includes the acclaimed short film Suckerfish and the CTV one-hour drama Reservation Soldiers. Lisa expanded into fiction filmmaking with her Genie Award winning short film Savage. She recently completed the CFC short Parkdale, and is currently writing her first feature, and continues to work on both fiction and documentary projects.

Heidi Tao Yang

Heidi Tao Yang has produced over nine award-winning short dramatic films. She has worked in feature films, television series, and supervised 30 hours of documentary television. Heidi was recently awarded the WIFT-CBC Business of Broadcasting Mentorship Award, as well as the CMPA Telefilm Producer Trainee Award for associate producing a cross-platform feature documentary about North Korean defectors. She is currently developing a tragicomedy feature, a children’s animation series, and a personal documentary about the communication barriers between first-generation immigrants and their second-generation children.

Nathaniel Arcand

Nathaniel Arcand is an Aboriginal actor from Edmonton, Alberta. His breakthrough role was in the TV series North of 60, where he received a Gemini Nomination for his supporting role as William MacNeil. Nathaniel shared the lead in the film Two Indians Talking, which screened at the 2011 ReelWorld Film Festival. He’s currently starring in two TV shows, Heartland and Blacksone, just finished a short film, appeared in Darlene Naponse’s film Every Emotion Costs alongside Tantoo Cardinal, and has many films in production including Drawing Home and Path of Souls with Adam Beach.

Rupinder Nagra

Rupinder Nagra is an actor and producer. He received a Genie Award Nomination for his role in the film Amal. Rupinder has had the opportunity to work with some of India’s top stars in Karan Johar’s film Kurbaan, including Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Om Puri. He is now gearing up to play the lead in Gaurav Seth’s Prisoner X. Having an interest in exploring character driven stories, Rupinder has recently launched TOWNHOUSE 10 in the UK.