Team

jamie Kastner - Director / PRODUCER

Jamie is known as the writer/producer/director of such idiosyncratic feature docs as The Skyjacker’s Tale, Secret Disco Revolution, Recessionize! (For Fun and Profit) and Kike Like Me. His work has played at festivals including TIFF, London, Rotterdam, Hot Docs, been commissioned by BBC Storyville, ZDF/Arte, TVO, Bell Media and sold around the world on various platforms, won prizes, and resounded with audiences and critics alike.

laura baron kastner - producer

Laura Baron Kastner is a Toronto-based producer focused on feature docs and factual. Most recently, she was a producer on The Skyjacker's Tale, a critically acclaimed feature doc which premiered at TIFF'16, is broadcast on Netflix, Super Channel, Canal D and ZDF/Arte, and is distributed by Strand Releasing in the US and C7 INTL internationally.

Prior to coming to the world of film production, Laura was a corporate lawyer at a leading Canadian law firm. Accordingly she approaches production with a keen eye for technical detail and precision, creative problem solving skills and a general get 'er done attitude.

mark anthony jacobson - executive producer

Mark Anthony Jacobson is a master woodland artist from Sioux Lookout, Ontario, who currently works and lives in British Columbia. A self-taught aboriginal artist, he discovered at a young age that the Creator blessed him with the artistic ability known as the woodland art movement.

Drawing traditional symbolism from within the subject matter of his aboriginal paintings, Mark Anthony Jacobson began to realize an energy of x-ray design was materializing in his native artwork. It was the visual language of life creation: the animals, the birds, the fish, the humanity and the energy of the spirit in all that there is in this beautiful universe.

michael hannan - editor

Gemini award-winner and Canadian Screen Award nominee Michael Hannan has been editing internationally acclaimed documentaries for over 20 years. He is currently a nominee for Best Editing in a Documentary Program at the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards for the documentary Into The Fire.

He won a Golden Sheaf Best Editing Award for David Ridgen’s Mississippi Cold Case, about an unsolved Civil Rights era murder case. The film also won Best of Festival at the Yorkton Film Festival, was nominated for an Emmy, and most important, caused the case to be re-opened and a Ku Klux Klan member to finally be convicted.  He also edited John Kastner’s two films about forensic mental health, NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, and Out of Mind, Out of Sight which won the Best Canadian Feature award at the 2014 Hot Docs Festival.

He has recently been editing the documentary D-Day in 14 Stories, working again with Jamie Kastner. Other recent work includes Shelley Saywell’s The War At Home, Leora Eisen’s Two Of A Kind and he also served as writer, producer and editor for the recent film Some Sort Of Judas.

kevin hearn - original score

Kevin Hearn is best known as a multi-instrumentalist from Barenaked Ladies, the multi-platinum selling band he’s played with for over two decades. One of the most respected Toronto musicians of the past 25 years, Hearn’s solo albums always attract equally brilliant collaborators such as singer/songwriters Ron Sexsmith and producer Gavin Brown (Metric, Tragically Hip, Sarah Harmer), not to mention his 22-year-relationship with the rhythm section of Chris Gartner and Great Bob Scott.

Hearn’s upcoming instrumental album ‘Calm and Cents’ is set for release this year and will feature violinist Hugh Marsh, alongside Gartner, and Brown.

Also set for release later this year is Hearn’s exclusive EP titled Kevin Hearn and Friends Present: The Superhero Suite. The special edition 12” EP is a wild medley of vintage superhero-related songs, including iconic music from TV and film running the gamut from the classic Batman theme to the 1978 soundtrack of Superman. The musical luminaries include Ron Sexsmith, Michael Ray of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Carole Pope, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Alan Doyle, The Persuasions and more. One noteworthy highlight is Violent Femmes, Barenaked Ladies and Colin Hay joining forces for the theme song from TV's Batman.

One of Hearn’s closest relationships, both musical and personal, was with the late, great Lou Reed, for whom Hearn acted as keyboardist and musical director from 2007 up until his passing in 2013.

Derek Rogers - cinematographer

Derek Rogers has been a cinematographer for 29 years. Beginning his career in documentary, he moved into drama, where he shot 20+ features, TV movies, TV series and pilots, including the Canadian classics New Waterford Girl and Cube. Shifting into commercials, he amassed over 400 credits for companies such as Toyota, Nissan, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Kraft, Loblaw, Colgate and Pepsi.  

In 2004 he returned to documentary, shooting Shipbreakers, for which he won a Gemini award, and the award-winning Diamond Road and 72 Hours series. Other documentary credits include: Raw Opium; Jamie Kastner’s feature docs The Secret Disco Revolution and The Skyjacker’s Tale; The World Before Her, shot in India for Storyline Entertainment; Explosion1812, Camp X, Building Star Trek and Black Watch Snipers for Yap Films; the 6-part series Hardcore Heroes; as well as two seasons of Surviving Evil.

Derek has won numerous cinematography awards for his work.