Director and Writer, “Cracking Cancer”
Judith is an award-winning director, writer, showrunner, and producer whose work spotlights the drama, comedy and competition of real life. Her work has aired on CBC, History Television, CTV, Bravo, TLC and has been syndicated all over the world.
Judith’s most recent documentary, Cowboy Up, airs on CBC Television in early 2016. Her documentary about British Columbia’s conjoined twins, Twin Life: Sharing Mind and Body, debuted on CBC in 2014 and has since been broadcast around the world. Judith was producer, director and writer of the documentary, produced with Entertainment One Television for CBC’s Doc Zone. The program was nominated for a 2015 Canadian Screen Award, and a Realscreen Award in the Non-Fiction – Science & Technology category.
Judith has directed and produced in diverse and challenging locations including the High Arctic, Liberia, rural Kenya, and across Japan, Europe, and North America. Science and health-related stories have included xenotransplantation, anti-drug vaccines, HIV, female genital mutilation, and pollution and reproductive health. She has interviewed hundreds of people including renowned artists, top scientists, international figures and village locals. Interview subjects include Lou Reed, Philip Glass, Cecilia Bartoli, Umberto Eco and Stephen King. In 2008 she received a Kaiser Fellowship for Global Health Reporting, a competitive international journalism fellowship awarded to 13 people from around the world.
Judith holds an MA in Political Science from York University, a Graduate Diploma in Communication Studies from Concordia University and a BA in English from the University of Victoria. She has taught documentary television production at Seneca College, York University, and the Vancouver Film School. She’s been appointed the 2017 Harvey S. Southam Lecturer in Journalism and Nonfiction at the University of Victoria.
Sharon Bartlett is an accomplished and creative storyteller with over 25 years’ experience in television news and documentary production. She spent eight years as a producer/director with CBC Network Television’s flagship current affairs program The Journal before becoming an independent TV producer in partnership with broadcaster Maria LeRose. Her Dreamfilm documentary credits (as director, writer and producer, in collaboration with Maria) include Desperately Seeking Doctors, Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids, Generation Boomerang, and Generation Jobless. Her awards include a Gemini for Best Documentary of the Year, a Gracie Allen Award from the Foundation of American Women In Radio and Television, a Chris Award (Best of Category) from the Columbus International Film & Video Festival, several Bronze Plaques from same, and a B’Nai Brith Human Rights Award.
John Collins has been working since 1974 as a cameraman and director of photography for all major networks, including A&E, NBC, BBC, CBC, CTV, Discovery and Japanese Television. He has experience in virtually every aspect of television production including documentary, electronic press kits, corporate videos, sporting events, and series. Prior to 1995, John worked for twelve years as a cameraman in the Vancouver newsroom of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. There he worked for the newsmagazine element of the newscast, which included being the cameraman for the Oscar-nominated documentary The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter. Since going freelance in 1995, John has worked on over 50 network documentaries. He won a Gemini Award for Best Cinematography on the documentary Wild Horse Redemption.
Maria LeRose is an award-winning television producer and interviewer. With 25 years of production experience to her credit, she has traveled the globe doing interviews and telling people’s stories. Maria’s background in psychology brings to her work a deep understanding of what makes people tick. She has been an independent TV producer for 13 years in partnership with Sharon Bartlett (Bartlett-LeRose Productions Ltd). Together they have produced television documentaries and series for CBC Television (Region and Network), and BC’s Knowledge Network. Recent documentaries include Desperately Seeking Doctors, Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids, Generation Boomerang and Generation Jobless.
Maria extends her production and interviewing skills beyond broadcast television. She works as a design consultant and moderator for large-scale webcast training initiatives for corporations and organizations that include The Boeing Company, US Department of Veteran’s Affairs, UBC, and the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education.
After two award-winning decades at the CBC, where she held senior producer positions in both radio and television, Palmer left in 2000 to series produce for American broadcasters TLC and the Discovery Channel. As an independent, she has a wealth of writing, directing and producing credits to her name – from the pilot for The Food Network’s Glutton for Punishment to Border Security for Shaw Media’s National Geographic TV. She and Sue Ridout worked together on the Life/Oxygen series Making It Big, and Maureen was co-writer and story editor on Dreamfilm’s The Downside of High. In 2002, Maureen formed Bountiful Films with business partner Helen Slinger. Currently Maureen produces, writes and directs critically acclaimed and crowd-pleasing documentaries; her directing credits include How To Divorce & Not Wreck the Kids, Cat Crazed, Sext Up Kids, Angry Kids & Stressed Out Parents (all for CBC Television’s Doc Zone) and Wasted, which airs on CBC Television’s The Nature of Things in early 2016.
Helen is a master storyteller who began her career as a newspaper and then television reporter. After a lengthy left turn into news management, she left mainstream media to pursue her passion for documentary. Slinger’s strength is her unique combination of skills. An empathetic director, the subjects of her films trust her completely, revealing deeply intimate aspects of their lives. But it’s her command of the narrative that is most remarkable. Slinger artfully weaves together complicated storylines, delivering a nuance that eludes most. Notables from a long list of documentary directing credits: Shadow Warrior, Leaving Bountiful, Mounties Under Fire, When the Devil Knocks, The Gangster Next Door, Dog Dazed, The Condo Game. For Dreamfilm, Helen wrote and directed Embracing Bob’s Killer as well as co-writing Peace Warrior, Depression: Fighting the Dragon, Desperately Seeking Doctors, Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids, Generation Boomerang, Programmed to Be Fat?, Generation Jobless, The Allergy Fix, To the Rescue, Weather Gone Wild, and The Antibiotic Hunters.
Tim Wanlin is a great editor.
(NB: Tim did not write that. He would never do such a thing. Luckily I, Sue Ridout, get to write Tim’s bio and say that he’s a great editor. He began his editing career in Kelowna, BC, cutting TV news. He’s been working as a freelance editor in Vancouver since 1993, with a focus on documentaries. Tim has edited over 50 of them, with many awards and nominations to his credit. But the awards don’t really matter; what matters is that he’s very talented and great to work with. Tim is patient, has a clear storytelling sensibility, and a terrific sense of humour. Which is very, very important.)
Melanie is a Vancouver filmmaker who has written, directed, and produced a wide variety of documentary programs for the CBC and others. Most recently, she directed and co-wrote To the Rescue and Weather Gone Wild for Dreamfilm. Other recent documentaries include Foncie’s Photos, using snapshots of one street photographer to trace a timeline through the heart of Vancouver, Liberia ’77 (Platinum and Critic’s Choice awards, Worldfest Houston) an adventure in photography, memory, and culpability in that war torn African country, and Carbon Hunters about emerging world carbon emissions markets. Her film School of Secrets, about girls who were told to keep secret their sexual relationship with their male teacher, won Best Documentary at the Gracie Allen Awards, New York, and the Remi Award for Documentary, Houston International Film Festival. Melanie has also produced and directed two documentaries on the borderlands between the internet and the human spirit: A Stranger In Our Home, about internet child sex predators and O.com, about cybersex addiction. O.com won awards at New York Festivals, Worldfest Houston and was selected for the Montreal Film Festival. Wood’s previous documentary credits include To Have and To Hold, profiling the victims of stalkers; The Sweet Assassin, which reveals the devastating effects of diabetes on First Nations; On Wings and Dreams: The Men Who Built Canada’s Airlines; and Chasing The Cure: Brett Finlay, Man Against Microbe.