Archive · Blood in the Snow Film Festival Presents
Deadly Exposure Industry Conference · Nov 21–26 · Toronto
The BITS Horror Lab is a development program focused on facilitating business and production opportunities for genre (horror, sci-fi, action, thriller) scripted projects and short films by traditionally underrepresented BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+ Canadian filmmakers and content creators. The Horror Lab supports 13 short-form film concepts or web series in development with the intention of moving these concepts into a feature film or web series project.
This program is less aimed at mentorship and more about access to business development. Accepted participants will meet with top industry professionals during Blood in the Snow Film Festival (Nov 21–26, 2022), with follow-up one-on-one meetings in early 2023. All participants also have access to the Deadly Exposure Industry Conference during the festival.
2022 Horror Development Lab
Complimentary coffee and tea from Deadly Grounds Coffee (now Coffin Creek Coffee)
with Stephanie Herrera (Marquee Insurance) + guest
with Greg Jeffs (William F. White)
with Keshia Saldanha, Business Development Manager (PurpleDOG Post Production)
with Kelly Michael Stewart (Blood in the Snow Film Festival)
Complimentary coffee and tea from Deadly Grounds Coffee (now Coffin Creek Coffee)
Selected Participants
🩸 We are pleased to announce the filmmakers selected to participate in the 2022 Horror Development Lab.
Joel H. Brewster is an award-winning genre screenwriter living in Victoria, BC — coincidentally one of the most haunted places in Canada. Brewster is passionate about bringing diversity to the stories he writes and equally dedicated to pushing the boundaries of the genres he works in. He has placed in 8 international screenwriting competitions since 2020, won an award for best screenplay at the 2021 Vancouver Badass Film Festival, has had six short films produced, one feature film in post-production, and is a two-time recipient of a Telus Storyhive Grant (2016 & 2022). His current goal is to create more horror films in British Columbia based on local urban legends and cryptids.
One of the founding members of Bad Cookie Pictures, Ariel Hansen grew up in Victoria, BC, and moved to Vancouver to pursue acting before jumping behind the camera as a writer and director. Her short Ready to Burst launched her directing career, and she has since made a variety of horrific shorts that have screened at festivals around the world, garnering numerous awards. Her films Clout and Damned Supper also won screenplay awards prior to being produced. Ariel is currently in development on a slate of feature horror films drawing inspiration from her short works.
Adrian is a Canadian-based, Mexican-born writer/director/editor. Renowned horror author Susie Moloney has described his narrative work as "dark, yet kindhearted." He has been awarded multiple times for his short film T-Minus (2018) and was part of Bloody Disgusting's horror anthology World of Death. Adrian was also the 2nd unit director for the feature documentary Dogville (2020) and co-edited the CBC feature documentary Her Last Project.
James Dixon is an Indigiqueer filmmaker and artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. With a BA in Film and Native Studies from the University of Manitoba, James' style combines abstract collaging and documentary aesthetics to create work that revolves around his process of decolonization. His work is regional, autobiographical, and experimental. His films have been exhibited widely in Canada and abroad, including the Gimli Film Festival, Toronto Queer Film Festival, and MIX NYC. James' work has been broadcast on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and collected by the Alexander Street Press.
Emily currently co-hosts We Really Like Her!, a podcast and screening series celebrating women in film. Her film and TV experience includes co-writing and producing episodes of Girl Up and Die. In recent years she has worked for Toronto After Dark Film Festival and the Canadian Film Centre (CFC). Emily is also a Marketing Manager for Hollywood Suite.
Josh Korngut is the managing editor of Dread Central, an internet publication focused on all things horror. He also hosts and produces the popular Development Hell podcast, uncovering scary movies that were never made. His film and television credits include Girl Up and Die, Big Brother Canada, Say Yes to the Dress, and Brown Girl Begins.
Eva is a St'at'imc-Eurasian filmmaker and the founder of Tooth & Nail Pictures, whose work explores death, deconstruction, and doubles. She is an alumna of the BANFF Spark Accelerator, the BIPOC TV and Film episodic writers lab, the Whistler Film Festival Indigenous Fellows Program, and a Reel World Emerging 20. She is the creator of the dark comedy web series Degrees of Separation, currently in development in partnership with Fae Pictures, and a co-writer of Entity. She is currently directing a block for Francophone children's TV show Couleurs du Nord and writing her Telus Storyhive-funded short film, (E)motionless Girl.
Khizer Khani is a writer and director born in Karachi, Pakistan, who moved with his family to Toronto in 1999. He fell in love with storytelling in high school after reading the Wheel of Time book series, a love that collided with video editing to lead him naturally to film. With his collaborator Andrew Ravindran, he created the short film To No Man's Land, which screened at Blood in the Snow and Toronto Shorts, where it won the Audience Award. Working on feature film scripts helped him enter the First Features Program at the Reel Asian Film Festival in 2018 and 2019. He has since made two short films, For Your Benefit and Amidst (2020).
Kai is a storyteller and producer of immersive experiences for kids, youth, and their caregivers filled with heart, impact, and giggles. Kai has worked from development to distribution on features, TV, shorts, music videos, and interactive experiences. In 2022, Kai won the YMA-TAAFI John Rooney Creator Fund. Kai gravitates to projects focused on culture, STEAM, social justice, the environment, and wellness. Kai's work plays with intersectionality and universality with sprinklings of humour, as seen in Kai's short CCF's Solstice Stories and the AR audio zine Storytellers' Lime: Journey to Babylon.
Tanis Parenteau is an actor/producer and member of the Metis Nation of Alberta — Region 6. TV credits include Billions, FBI: Most Wanted, Gossip Girl, Designated Survivor, House of Cards, and Tribal. Her production company TDEP Productions focuses on decolonizing the entertainment space by uplifting contemporary Indigenous stories. Her debut short film A Big Black Space garnered a broadcasting deal on ARTE in Europe, won Best Canadian Short at Dreamspeakers Film Festival and the Royal Reel Award at the Canada International Film Festival. She has been funded by Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Media Fund, and Bell Fund, and is in prep for an APTN lumi short-form original digital series.
Vickie Ramirez (Tuscarora) is a founding member of Chukalokoli Theater. Her work has been developed and/or produced at Native Voices at the Autry, Alter Theater, The Public Theater, The Roundabout Theatre Company, and Labyrinth Theater Company. Honours include: Resident-New Dramatists through 2027, Winner of the 2020 Smith Prize for Political Theater (NNPN), and The Kilroys Honorary Mention 2019 for Pure Native. Her work is published in Monologues for Actors of Color and Contemporary Plays by Women of Color (Routledge Press). She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN America, and served as Consultant on Outer Range for Amazon TV.
Brian Quintero is a Canadian-Costa Rican filmmaker born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. As a diverse and new generation voice of emerging filmmakers, he has written and directed several short films and music videos, including his recent collaboration with the rock band Living Dead Girl on their music video Poltergeist (2021). His short film Walk Away (2018) and Days Gone Bye (2020) had a sold-out world premiere at the Toronto Black Film Festival. Most recently, Brian wrote and directed Oldtimers (2022), starring veteran actors Julian Richings and Conrad Coates, which had its international world premiere at Fantasia Film Festival, winning the Silver Audience Award for Best Canadian Short Film.
Ray Raghavan's first short film Maya Getting Born won Best Student Film at the Vancouver International South Asian Film Festival. His directorial debut feature Violentia played at various genre festivals and won Best Director at Berlin Sci-Fi Festival before being acquired by Gravitas Ventures for worldwide distribution in 2019. His latest short Alienation had a strong 2022 festival run including FilmQuest, Trieste Sci-Fi, Morbido, Ravenna Nightmare, and Blood in the Snow. Ray resides in Vancouver but grew up in rural UP, India, surrounded by class wars, caste wars, and religious differences — a rich backdrop that continues to fuel his appetite for storytelling.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg is a Contributing Editor for ScreenAnarchy, the Executive Director of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, and a programmer for Wench Film Festival. Her first short films Measure and Flow have played at festivals around the world. Her book The Spanish Fantastic: Contemporary Filmmaking in Horror, Fantasy and Sci-Fi was published in 2016.
Christina Saliba started a career in wildlife biology before launching into the world of cinema as a film production manager on independent short and feature films. In 2017, she joined Goldrush Entertainment as a development executive, discovering new intellectual property to produce and providing support in pre- to post-production. Recently, Saliba graduated from the Canadian Film Centre's Producers' Lab, won the Whistler Film Festival's Power Pitch Competition, and is in post-production on her horror short White Noise, funded by the Harold Greenberg Fund, Bell Media's Crave, and SODEC.
Laura Tremblay is a Metis actor, singer, songwriter, and filmmaker with endless creative drive. Tremblay created Lucky Dime Films in 2016, a production company geared towards making quality films on minimal budgets. She has produced a variety of feature and short-length films including Motherly (Shudder; Official Selection of Blood in the Snow, Calgary Film Festival, Grimmfest UK, Frightfest), A Dinner Party (CBC Canadian Reflections, 2021), He & Me (Winner of Best Canadian MicroFilm at Videodrunk Film Festival 2019, Best Cult Film at Queen City Film Festival 2019, Best Ultra-Short at Alternative Film Festival Toronto 2019), Here's Ginger! (Seoul Web Fest, Minnesota Web Fest, Sao Paulo Web Fest), and Doors (Official Selection, Toronto After Dark Film Festival).
2022 Horror Development Lab
| March 1, 2022 | Applications open — Closed |
| October 1, 2022 | Final application deadline |
| October 15, 2022 | Notification date — accepted applicants informed |
| November 21–26, 2022 | Horror Development Lab in downtown Toronto. Three days of development and two days of intensive Deadly Exposure events (panels and round tables). Your Lab pass also includes a screening pass to all films in the evenings. |
| January–March 2023 | A series of one-on-one meetings (online) with your assigned Industry Lead for follow-up. |
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