MEET THE 2023 HIFF TEAM

 
 


TARA THORNE

FESTIVAL COORDINATOR • hiff@afcoop.ca
Tara Thorne is a recovering journalist and multi-disciplinary artist. She hosts the arts and culture podcast The Tideline, leads the rock band Dance Movie, and has recently completed Compulsus, her debut feature as a writer-director. She lives in Halifax's north end with her cats Winston and Gertie (not pictured).

EVAN BOWER

PROGRAMMING COORDINATOR • evan@afcoop.ca
Evan is a writer, reporter and film programmer living in Dartmouth, NS. Previously, he served as Lunenburg Doc Fest’s media coordinator and as an arts reporter on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. He recently completed his first novel through Humber College’s School for Writers.


NINA CHERRY

FESTIVAL ASSISTANT • hiffassist@afcoop.ca
Nina is a collector of stories and sea shells, residing in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. They are just beginning their foray into film and television, having story edited for Eastlink Community TV’s FashionablyGREAT and Stomp It Out. They have a background in journalism and graphic design, and most recently have been taking writing workshops with Fariha Róisín, Luke Hathaway, and Waubgeshig Rice. Nina can usually be found basking in the sun on her apartment fire escape with a bag of all-dressed chips, chatting to the crows.

AARON WEBSTER

PRINT TRAFFIC INTERN
Aaron Webster is a filmmaker, musician and artist from Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. He has had work exhibited in festivals such as Atlantic International Film Festival and OBEY Convention. In 2018 he graduated from Toronto Film School for Screenwriting and has just graduated the Screen Arts program at NSCC.

 
 

 2023 PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE

 

The HIFF Programming Committee is an external committee composed of local filmmakers and cinephiles. The committee meets regularly in the months leading up to the festival to select the visiting filmmaker content for the festival. The committee watched dozens of features and short films in order to select content for this year’s HIFF that is diverse, bold and contributes to the advancement of the discourse of cinema.

The Programming Committee is composed of Evan Bower, Rebecca Falvey, Tori Fleming, Kelly Li and Fallen Matthews.

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Tori Fleming is a media artist, programmer and curator based in Halifax, NS. Working primarily with 16mm Celluloid, Tori's practice also includes painting, installation, and animation. Her works have exhibited in Nuit Blanche Toronto, Art in the Open PEI, the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival, the Bus Stop Theatre, the Khyber Centre for the Arts and more. She has been awarded multiple grants and awards including the Starfish Properties Award for Film, the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative Celluloid Grant, and an Arts Nova Scotia Creation Grant.

Fleming’s curatorial work focuses on media arts, often centering on the space between media art and filmmaking. Fleming is currently the Director of Programming at the Centre for Art Tapes, a Media Arts based artist-run centre in North End Halifax. Through her independent curatorial practice, Fleming has recently worked with the Anna Leonowens Gallery, Nocturne Art at Night Festival, and the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival. Fleming works to promote the status of the artist and Canadian cultural institutions through volunteer work as a director on the boards of various arts groups including Halifax Ink, a Nova Scotia based artists publication non-profit, and as the Atlantic Canadian Representative for the Artist-Run Centre Association of Canada.

Rebecca Falvey is a writer, director, actor, programmer and ¼ of Phyllis Rising Productions. She is the creator/writer/lead actor of the web series The Crevice, a multi-camera sitcom which is shot and streamed in front of a live audience at The Bus Stop Theatre.

Kelly Li is a filmmaker and artist based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). She is the Managing Producer at the Prismatic Arts Festival, an annual, multidisciplinary arts festival that solely showcases the work of Indigenous artists and artists of colour. A graduate of Dalhousie University's Cinema and Media Studies program, she loves film theory and production in equal measure. She is excited by films which explore radical, language-breaking perspectives and experimental mediums.

Fallen Matthews is an Afro-L'nu graduate candidate from Dalhousie's interdisciplinary doctorate program. Although her project is anchored by psychoanalytic film theory in Cinema and Media studies, other disciplines of interest and relevance include History, English, and Contemporary Studies. Her interest in media was foreshadowed by her namesake—Fallon Carrington from Dynasty—and fostered through proclivities for animation, felines, and televisual narrative.


ATLANTIC AUTEURS JURY

HIFF assembles a jury of local filmmakers to watch over a hundred  short film submissions by filmmakers from Atlantic Canada. The jury is an external group which is separate from regular AFCOOP staff and the HIFF Programming Committee.

Submissions to the Atlantic Auteurs program are open to filmmakers based in Atlantic Canada.