Faculty

Carlo Ghioni is an Italian-born cine-maker, animator and educator whose work bridges the cultural spaces between Europe and North America. He has directed and produced award-winning films, documentaries, and animated shorts for CBC, RAI, Arte, France3, Discovery and SKY. His recent work explores stop-motion, marionette theatre and VR storytelling. His projects, funded by the Canada Council, Telefilm, BC Arts Council and the Venice Biennale, reveal a deeply humanist and multidisciplinary approach to visual narrative.

Dr. Jordan Gowanlock’s work focuses on the interaction between technology and creative practice in the history of animation, special effects and games. He has a PhD in Film and Movie Image Studies from Concordia University and was a Visiting Researcher at University of California Berkeley, with support from the Fonds de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture. Jordan has published in the academic journals Animation, Technoculture and Navigationen and has published a monograph through Palgrave Macmillan titled Animated Unpredictable Effects.

Jingqing Jia is a filmmaker, educator and entrepreneur whose interdisciplinary practice spans visual art, design and media. Her teaching and creative work focus on film production, media arts and courses in creative thinking and studio practice. Drawing from her industry experience and artistic perspective, Qing encourages engagement across multiple dimensions of practice, from visual storytelling to cultural and critical reflection.

Harry Killas is a Canadian director, writer and producer who has worked in the United States, Canada and Europe. His dramatic films have been screened at major international festivals and his documentary films have been broadcast worldwide. His credits include three feature-length documentaries and a short film for the City of Vancouver. He programmed seven seasons of The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia for The Cinémathèque and is curator of the Vancouver Greek Film Festival.

Yani Kong is a writer, editor, and scholar of contemporary art. Her writing appears in publications across Canada and internationally. Their research areas are reception aesthetics, contemporary art history, digital ecology and eco-aesthetics. As a member of the Low Carbon Research Methods Working Group and director of the Small File Media festival, they explore sustainable practices in streaming media.

Rubén Möller works as an independent animator in Vancouver. He pursues film and digital production to evolve his theory and practice of new media structures. Through his own production company along with television and theatrical organizations he branches out these ideas into industry and education.

Rodrigo has been teaching the art and technique of camera and lighting for over 20 years in various film schools in Vancouver and in Florida. Additionally, he has focused his career in creating short films using screendance as format. He is a Companion Member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers.

Pietro Sammarco is a sound producer who listens with curiosity and improvises with found materials and field recordings. He is currently doing sound design for a multichannel horror movie about a ghost town in Kitsault, B.C., and composing a soundscape about elementary students designing a chocolate bar with Big Rock Candy Mountain. He has taught at ECU, UBC, SFU, Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre and the VPL’s Inspiration Lab. He studied soundscape composition with Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp.

Veenu Sandhu is an actor, writer and director originally from Dawson Creek, B.C., which is the ancestral land of the Cree, Dane-Zaa, Saulteau, Sikanni and Slavey First Nations. She has been acting on stage, in film and TV since 2007, and is also a Senior Instructor at Vancouver Film School.

prOphecy sun is an artist, movement, video, soundmaker and mother of three. Her practice celebrates the in-between where art, performance and life overlap. They have a PhD in Philosophy in Arts + Technology from Simon Fraser University and held a Jack and Doris Shadbolt Fellowship in Arts and the Humanities. prOphecy appears in music festivals, conferences and galleries. She has written on sound design, installation, performance, media arts and domestic spheres for Routledge Press, Taylor & Francis and MIT Press.

Jonathan Tammuz is a filmmaker and educator whose work spans drama, documentary and feature film. Trained as a therapist at London’s Tavistock Clinic, he later studied directing at the National Film & TV School. His short film The Childeater earned an Academy Award nomination in 1990, followed by acclaimed projects for Channel 4, NHK and Showtime. His features Minotaur (1996) and Rupert’s Land (1998) received multiple Genie and Leo nominations. Jonathan has taught film production and directing in Canada, Britain and Europe. Based in Vancouver, he continues to create, including his current project Miner, a comedic drama set in Wales.