Board of Directors

Board Members

Festival Board of Directors

• Aaron Schwartz, Chair
• Beth Jones, Vice Chair
• Stuart Toye, Treasurer
• Andrew Stevenson, Secretary
• Alex Miller
• Alison Duke
• Paul Lewis
• Sujata Berry
• Victoria Hirst
• Tom Keane

Board Member Biographies

Aaron Schwartz, Chair of the Board

Aaron Schwartz is a lawyer in Toronto. After ten years with a major Bay Street law firm, Aaron is now in sole practice, focused in entertainment law, intellectual property litigation (copyright and trade-marks), civil litigation and alternative dispute resolution. Aaron has a B.A. from Swarthmore College, an M.F.A. in Theatre from Columbia University, and an L.L.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School. Over the years, Aaron has served as a member of the Boards of Directors of Canadian Actors' Equity Association, The Factory Theatre and the Performing Arts Lodges of Canada Foundation.

Before entering law school in 1990, Aaron enjoyed a long career as an actor, director, writer, and producer. He wrote for CBC’s King of Kensington, appeared in many feature films including Suspect with Cher and the award-winning Canadian film The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick, in television series including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Street Legal, and as a regular on Check It Out with Don Adams. Aaron was a co-founder and director of a theatre company in Toronto for a number of years, and was nominated for a Dora Award for best director for his production of Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean.

Beth Jones, Vice-Chair

Beth Jones fled a PhD program in Psychology to become an environmentalist in 1989, and she has never looked back. In her early years she worked for Greenpeace, where her responsibilities ranged from managing direct mail campaigns to blocking rail shipments. Later she returned to school to study Green Economics and Popular Education and received an M.A. from OISE/UofT in 1996. In 1997 her efforts shifted urban transportation and in collaboration with the City of Toronto she co-founded Moving the Economy, an organization that promotes the economic benefits of shifting to sustainable transportation systems. Currently she works as the Associate Director of Green Communities Canada, a national association of community-based environmental groups. Beth joined the PiF Board in late 2006. In her spare time she enjoys creative writing, as well as fixing up her 100 year old house.

Alex Miller, Treasurer

Alex Miller is founder and President of ESRI Canada Limited, a privately held Canadian owned company specializing in the design and implementation of geographic information systems. Mr. Miller is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton with a Bachelor of Science in Surveying Engineering. Mr. Miller has over 35 years experience in surveying, mapping, engineering, information systems design and in management consulting. He is past Chair of the Geomatics Industry Association of Canada, Co-Chair of the GeoConnections Policy Advisory Committee, Chair of the Geomatics Canada Advisory Committee and a member of the Federal Department of Natural Resources Minister's National Advisory Board on Earth Sciences.

Stuart Toye, Treasurer

Stuart spent two summers during university planting thousands of trees in northern British Columbia. Stuart joined the PIF Board in 2010. In his spare time, Stuart enjoys playing sports and spending time in Killarney and Algonquin Provincial parks.

Andrew Stevenson, Secretary

Originally from B.C., Andrew Stevenson completed his undergraduate degree in Honours English at the University of British Columbia, followed by a Masters in Cinema Studies from New York University. Since that time he has been writing and producing independent films. His documentary My Part of Town, a portrait of the eccentric residents of Hamilton, Ontario’s industrial waterfront, was featured at several international film festivals and broadcast across Canada on The Documentary Channel. His latest film Creative Violation: The Rebel Art of the Street Stencil, a documentary about street artists, recently won the best documentary award at the Niagara Indie Film Festival. He has been teaching film production at Niagara College since 2000.

Andrew first became active in environmental issues during the 1993 campaign to block clearcut logging in the old-growth rainforests of Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. He was one of over 900 protestors arrested in the largest act of peaceful civil disobedience in the country’s history. He spends much of his free time cycling and exploring Algonquin Park by canoe. Andrew joined the PIF Board in 2007.

Sujata Berry

Sujata Berry is a current affairs television producer for CBC, The National. Her work has taken her across Canada and given her the opportunity to report on all the top stories of our day: from elections to the economy and the environment. Sujata’s views on environmentalism were shaped by her childhood in Bombay. Growing up in urban India, there was little contact with the grandeurs of nature. Coming to Toronto was a revelation: trees, parks and gardens everywhere you turn. She is deeply committed to preserving these bounties of the natural environment for future generations. Towards that end, Sujata helped set up a greening organization in her neighbourhood. She believes deeply that each one of us has a role to play in being part of the solution.

Sujata joined the board at Planet in Focus in 2007 and was the chair of the board from  2008- 2009. Her involvement with Planet in Focus brings together her interests to communicate ideas and to foster the discussion of the environment through the medium of film and video. In her non-working hours, Sujata has a passion for tending to her backyard vegetable and flower gardens, riding her bike to work and playing tennis on weekends.

Alison Duke

Ms Duke’s filmmaking career began in the mid-90s when she was asked to co-write and produce a short film for a friend and a music video for another. What began, as a dare became an experience so enjoyable that she started producing music videos for other local musicians. Between 1996-1999, she co-owned and operated a small production Raje Film House Inc. Over the course of 4 years, this little boutique company created 150 music videos for some of the brightest up and coming Canadian artists such as Nelly Furtado, Kos and Motion. Raje was nominated for 19 Much Music Awards and won two awards for Rascal’s Northern Touch and Blackkat’s, If I were a Planet directed by Little x. Her experience at Raje inspired her to direct the seminal hip-hop film Raisin’ Kane: a rapumentary (2000) which captured the trials and tribulations of the Canadian Hip Hop scene. Her rapumentary went on to win the HBO best documentary award at Urbanworld and best Canadian documentary award at the Reelworld.

From 2001-2003, Alison worked as a senior segment producer for Chum Television’s syndicated Gemini award-winning documentary series Sex TV and produced short docs. Her TV segments such as Booty Nation, From the Pimpstick to the Pulpit screened in numerous markets and festivals. A string of other longer format social issues documentaries followed such as A Deathly Silence and Sisters in Cinema. From 2004 to present, Alison spearheaded numerous media-based projects while producing and developing documentaries, PSAs for TV broadcast, web, 2.0 and community organizations. Some titles include, Hear the Story (looking at the marginalization of Toronto’s youth of colour), Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home (tracking a Canadian family’s eco footprint) and The Women I Have Become (following 4 African and Caribbean women living with HIV in Toronto).

Alison is currently producing Bruce Mcdonald’s A Love/Hate Supreme, and Thomas Allen Harris’s Digital Diaspora Family Reunion. Alison is also shooting a documentary and is penning her feature drama script.

Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis, as President and General Manager of Discovery Channel Canada, oversees all of the network’s day-to-day operations including programming, production and marketing. In addition, he oversees Discovery Civilization, Animal Planet, Travel + Escape, Discovery HD, Exploration Production Inc. and Exploration Distribution Inc.

Lewis joined Discovery Channel in 1994 as Executive Producer of in-house programming and helped to create the world's first daily science magazine show, @discovery.ca, which was re-introduced in Fall 2002 as Daily Planet.

In addition to his Discovery responsibilities, Lewis has been involved in numerous industry organizations, including Director of the World Congress of Science Producers, an organization dedicated to the sharing of programming ideas and productions with international broadcasters, independent producers and distributors as well as The Canadian Association of Broadcasters. He is a graduate of the journalism program at Ryerson University and has completed the Alliance Atlantis Banff Television Executive Program.

Victoria Hirst

An accomplished and sought after producer, Victoria’s impressive array of credits include some of the most highly acclaimed Canadian films in recent memory. Among her credits are the stunning Sarah Polley debut, twice Oscar nominated Away from Her (Pulling Focus), the Sundance favorite Owning Mahowny (starring the amazing Phillip Seymour Hoffman; Alliance Atlantis/H20/Sony Classics), Lions Gate’s cult favorite American Psycho, and festival favorites Century Hotel (Victorious Films/TVA) and Twist (Victorious Films/Christal).

In 2008 Victoria raced around the globe as Co-Producer on the feature documentaries: Iron Maiden-The Documentary and Global Metal, which is currently available on DVD.

Most recently Victoria teamed up with Gabriella Martinelli of Capri Films and co-produced Suck, a rock and roll, road vampire movie which is expected in theatres Fall 2009.

Victoria loves traveling and to compensate for her excessive carbon footprint she goes on annual whale and dolphin research retreats, raises money and volunteers for the World Wildlife Fund. She is currently abstaining from purchasing anything brand new in an effort to demonstrate (to almost anyone who will listen) just how easy it is to re-use, reduce and recycle.

Tom Keane

Tom Keane is a marketing consultant in Toronto. He is the President of Strategic Marketing Counsel Inc., a firm that provides upfront research, communications planning and performance measurement services for advertisers. He also lectures as a Professor at Seneca College in the Creative Advertising Program.

He is currently involved in the not-for-profit sector as a member of the Campaign Council for L’Arche Daybreak, an organization dedicated to “ making known the gifts of people with intellectual disabilities”.

Tom has enjoyed a long and successful career in the marketing business. After graduating with an Honors B.A. in History from Concordia University, he started his career as a market researcher with Alcan Aluminium Ltd, and then moved on to work in the daily newspaper industry in research, promotion and sales, and also served as a Sales Manager for the Globe and Mail. He later joined KPMG and became a Partner in the firm in 1988, and worked internationally in the Netherlands. He then opened a marketing and media consultancy in Toronto.
He has worked on brand advertising campaigns, strategic marketing projects, new media ventures, and media product launches. Tom also operated an audience/ market testing service for Canadian film directors, producers and distributors in the nineties.

He is a committed environmentalist and believes in the power of art to educate, change attitudes and transform behavior over time.