Planet In Focus Staff

Staff

• Executive Director - Sarah Margolius
• Director of Programming - Kathleen Mullen
• Associate Programmer - Juana Awad
• Children and Youth Programmer - Carly Whitefield
• Industry Programmer - Allan Tong
• Program Development Officer - Anne Mark
• Administrative Coordinator – Dagny Thompson
• Bookkeeper - Carl Choy

Office:

55 Mill Street, Building 74,
Studio 402 Toronto, ON M5A 3C4
Phone: 416-531-1769
Fax: 416-531-8985

Staff Bios 

Sarah Margolius- Executive Director

Sarah Margolius is a passionate advocate for green community-building initiatives and has spent almost 15 years working in various sectors of the film industry. Sarah comes to Planet in Focus from AIM Education, where she was Director of Global Marketing which includes in its roster Criterion Pictures, a leading motion picture non-theatrical distributor, and Learn360, an educational media-on-demand service. Before that, Sarah spent seven years in senior marketing roles at award-winning distributors Lionsgate and THINKFilm, several years in video production and on the frontlines of environmental politics. Sarah believes in the power of film to change how we think about our world, and the way we live.
 

Kathleen Mullen- Director of Programming

For over fourteen years Kathleen has programmed at film festivals internationally including the Toronto International Film Festival, as the Short Cuts Canada programmer, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Vancouver International Film Festival and Provincetown International Film Festival. For five years she was the director of programming at the Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival. She recently completed an MFA in Film Production from York University. Kathleen has directed several short films including you wash my skin with sunshine, Sleep Lines and Still Life with Butterfly. Her latest film is Breathtaking, a mid-length personal investigative documentary about her father and the legacy and present-use of asbestos.

Juana Awad - Associate Programmer

Juana Awad is a film industry professional and video artist. She has recently returned from London UK where acted as the Marketing Director and Festival Liaison for London based sales and distribution agency Salt, and is currently directing 3D FLIC (3D Film Innovation Consortium) housed at York University. She has a longstanding history at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she has previewed films from Latin America, Spain and Portugal for pre-selection, prior to which, she was the Executive director and co-programmer of AluCine Latin Media Festival. As a curator she has composed film and video programmes for several national and international bodies including Trace - UK, Museum of Modern Art - Colombia, City of Buenos Aires - Argentina, and Harbourfront Centre - Canada. Her video works have been exhibited at festivals and art galleries around the world including Argos Arts - Belgium, Gallery 27 - UK, Impakt Holland, and Sanhe Museum - China. Juana holds an MFA in Fine Art Media from the Slade School of Fine Art (London, UK) and a degree in Semiotics and Communication Theory from the University of Toronto.
 

Carly Whitefield - Children and Youth Programmer

Carly Whitefield is a film and video programmer working primarily in educational outreach and children’s programming. In 2006 she graduated from the Cultural Studies program at McGill University. Her Honours thesis re-examined the existing body of semiotic, psychoanalytic and Marxist film theory in the space of new media platforms. After graduation, Carly spent two and a half years working and traveling throughout eight countries across Asia. Since her return to Toronto, she has worked in the film festival industry in various programming, coordinating, educational, and outreach capacities. Among the festivals for which she has worked are the Images Festival, the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, Regent Park Film Festival, and the International Diaspora Film Festival.

Allan Tong - Industry Programmer

Allan Tong is a Toronto filmmaker whose most recent films are the shorts, I Want To Be A Desi and I Want To Be A Desi 2.  His films have been broadcast on the CBC and Bravo. He apprenticed as a documentary director and producer at the National Film Board of Canada. His articles about cinema have appeared in respected journals including POV, Take One and CinemaScope as well as The Globe and Mail, Exclaim! and The Festival Daily published by the Toronto International Film Festival. He also writes about eco issues for MoneySense magazine.  Allan has organized and programmed festivals including Planet In Focus and CONTACT Toronto Photography, and is launching the Schools Program for the South Asian Video Arts Centre.

Anne Mark – Program Development Officer

Anne Mark carries the institutional memory of Planet in Focus having joined the organization in 2003 as the organization’s first employee. Through 2006 she was the Festival Manager and when she returned from maternity leave in 2007 she became the Program Officer responsible for  public and foundation funding of the festival and year round programs. Her specialized knowledge and expertise is applied toward the development of our on-going and new programs. An ardent environmentalist, Anne has an Masters in Environmental Studies from York University as well as a BFA in Film from York University.

Dagny Thompson- Administrative Coordinator

Dagny Thompson is a filmmaker who most recently joined Planet in Focus as our Administrative Coordinator and has held a love for film since she was a wee child. She studied English at the University of Toronto and ended up learning her trade through countless hours of volunteering on short films. Working as a production assistant in the film and television industry in Toronto trained her well for her work as a production coordinator and filmmaker in the independent film scene. She has coordinated over a dozen independent films and written and directed three short dramatic and documentary films, a ten-part educational series, and numerous dance and promotional videos. Dagny was the technical coordinator at the Hart House Film Board at the University of Toronto and she has been an instructor at our Youth Camera Action! program where her considerable skills have left an indelible impact on budding filmmakers.