Emily Ramsay is a documentary producer and community storyteller. A graduate of Algonquin College’s Scriptwriting program and the WIFT Media Business Essentials program, she was selected for the CMPA Ontario Production Mentorship, WIFT Corus Media Management Accelerator, Ottawa Festivals Leadership Circle, and City of Ottawa Youth in Culture Pilot grant. Passionate about mentoring the next generation of film and video makers, she serves as Chair of the Board of the Digi60 Filmmakers’ Festival, Ottawa’s professional development festival for new and emerging filmmakers, and as a board member of the Ottawa Festival Network. As a member of the Obscura Creative artist collective, she created and produced multiple docu-series and video projects focusing on community building in Ottawa. Her broadcast credits include CBC Ottawa, AMI-tv, CTV, TVO, APTN and Bell Fibe TV1.
General Inquiries, Software Management, Finance, HR
Available from:
10 am to 5 pm | Monday – Wednesday
10 am to 6 pm | Thursday & Friday
Laura Paolini’s artwork is primarily conceptual and manifests through installations, videos, and performances, often unfolding where these forms meet, merge and collapse. Since 2009, Paolini has exhibited, screened and performed locally and internationally. She recently participated in FADO’s ‘A Score of Scores’ curated performance series (May 2023); through this invitation, she interpreted and performed a score by artist Tomasz Szrama. In addition to a history of exhibition, Paolini worked in artist-run centres throughout, and has had parallel careers as an arts administrator, programmer, bike shop employee, and hotel cleaner, all of which inform her practices’ subtleties, pace, and tempo. Paolini earned an MFA from the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa (2021). Her video works are distributed through Vtape (Toronto) and Bridge Video(Chicago).
Educational Programming, Grants & Residencies
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10 am to 5 pm | Monday – Friday
Meral Tan is a graduate of Carleton University’s Film Studies MA program. Her master’s research focused on the representations of depression in contemporary Scandinavian cinema. Meral is passionate about writing and filmmaking. She received the City of Ottawa’s 2023 Seed Award in Equity and Inclusion in the Arts Program to write a screenplay for her short film project. As an early-career artist, Meral takes delight in supporting Ottawa’s media arts community through her role as the Community Access and Education Coordinator.
Programming, Memberships, Facility Bookings (the Loop, DARC Microcinema)
Available from:
10 am to 6 pm | Wednesday – Friday
Partnerships, Organizational Memberships, Community Involvement, Grants.
Available from:
12 pm to 5 pm | Wednesday & Thursday, and by appointment
Olivia Onuk is a multidisciplinary artist, community organizer and arts administrator. Her work is rooted in the truth of Art as Therapy, as a tool for self-care, connection, and making sense of trauma. Olivia’s passion for community building and outreach is demonstrated by her continued involvement in various community-focused projects, including the development of arts programming in Winnipeg for underrepresented youth. As the Operations and Special Events Coordinator at the Ottawa South Community Association, she managed the planning and execution of various community events. Outside of work, Olivia enjoys talking through creative ideas, traveling, making/eating food, and spending time in nature (by any body of water).
Media Inquiries, Web Management, Social Media Management, Promotional Support, Newsletter
Available from:
10 am to 5 pm | Monday – Friday
Salem Paige is a poet, essayist, and multidisciplinary artist who explores themes of identity and discomfort, as well as the connections between technology and nature. They are a graduate of the University of Ottawa and hold an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Communications Media and Culture. Their photography has received the Jury’s Choice and SPAO Young at Art awards, and their poetry has previously been shortlisted for the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest, the Bridport Poetry Prize, and the ROOM Poetry Prize. Their work can be found in their debut poetry collection, The Third Self (2023), their chapbook to grow roots (2023), and literary journals and magazines including Bywords.ca and flo. literary magazine, among many others.
Facility Bookings (Digital Edit Suite, Recording Studio, DARC SOUNDSTAGE), Production Assistance, Event & Exhibition Support, Equipment Donations
Available from:
10 am to 5 pm | Monday – Wednesday
10 am to 6 pm | Thursday & Friday
Evelyn Sifton is an Ottawa based gaffer and grip. She has worked on a wide range of productions including: commercials, music videos, documentaries, art films, tv movies, indie films, and multi-million dollar features. Instructing past DARC workshops for grip, electric, and lighting, she is always happy to teach the next generation of filmmakers.
Erin Flynn, B.A., B.Ed, is a community builder and arts administrator. Her passion for people and the arts have led her on a winding road of discovery. With a long history as Station Manager at CHUO 89.1 FM, Ottawa-Gatineau’s community driven, independent radio station, she has connected deeply with the arts and culture community. Most recently, she has worked with the Ottawa International Writers Festival and Being Art Studio to launch their respective podcast series.
With a background in Environmental Studies and Experiential Learning, Erin is constantly looking for new ways to deepen her knowledge and explore new ways of doing things. Her volunteering experience includes serving on the Board Of Directors of Apt613.ca, House of PainT, and currently as a music writer for earSHOT! She was a juror for both the Polaris Music Prize and FACTOR.
Born in Montreal, Deborah Margo (she/her) lives in Ottawa. She is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and has exhibited her work across Canada. She is also part of a collaborative duo, Spectral Weavers, with Annette Hegel. As an adjunct professor in the Department of Visual Arts, at the University of Ottawa, she teaches courses in the studio arts to undergraduate and graduate students. Finally, during the growing season she works as a gardener designing, planting and maintaining gardens in the Ottawa Valley.
Jack Hui Litster is a music performer, composer and producer, who, over the past two decades, has composed and recorded over 75 songs in many genres. His music has been featured in videos, podcasts, and in performance. As Composer-in-Residence for OperOttawa, Jack has composed two operas: The Day You Were Born (2021) which deals with the range of emotions that accompany pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood; and What Is Love?, which sets to music the poetry from Kahlil Gibran’s beloved book The Prophet.
Jack holds an MA in Music and Culture from Carleton University, a Bachelor of Social Science from the University of Ottawa, a Professional Certificate from Berklee College of Music (music business and film scoring), and a Diploma in Jazz Performance from St. Francis Xavier University. From 2010-2020, Jack worked in nonprofit organizations as a fundraiser and community organizer, most recently with Ottawa-based social justice organization Inter Pares.
Stefan Grambart is an award-winning creative with over twenty years of combined experience across film, television, games, and digital media. Stefan has worked on a wide range of interactive projects, and has earned multiple awards including Canadian Screen Awards, a Peabody-Facebook Award, as well as the first-ever Primetime Emmy Award for a Virtual Reality project.
Stefan holds a Master’s degree in Digital Media from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) where his research was focused on immersive storytelling for VR/AR and content production for streaming media. He has worked with many clients and partners including PBS Frontline, Ontario Creates, and the National Film Board of Canada.
Trish Sawhney, BMus, B.A, L.L.B., is a licensed lawyer in the Province of Ontario. Her interest in the legal profession stemmed from her experiences as a musician and her first-hand understanding of the importance of protecting one’s creative works. As such, Trish found herself captivated by the world of intellectual property law. Trish is well-versed in securing, protecting, enforcing, and licensing various intellectual property rights of creators and owners in a wide range of industries. Trish is excited to support the development and growth of artists throughout the local community by offering her strategic and analytical expertise to the DARC Board of Directors.
Colin Masterson is a local independent artist, screenwriter and actor who has been a frequent participant in Ottawa’s Digi60 Filmmakers’ Festival since he graduated from the Algonquin College’s Scriptwriting program in 2018. In the past 5 years has won the “Best Screenplay” award twice, and continues to be an active member of the filmmaking community. Before moving home from Vancouver in 2017, Colin had worked on a wide variety of productions from TV broadcast companies like FOX, CBS and Amazon Prime to Universal major motion pictures. Colin is incredibly passionate about our independent filmmaking community, our city, and is committed to helping build a thriving, inclusive and supportive environment for all independent artists.
Jose Palacios is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Ottawa. He was born in Lima, Peru, and has been an Ottawa resident since 1987. As a visual artist, he produces visually stimulating abstract digital pieces and paintings with gouache and acrylic on canvas and paper. His work has been shown at the Galerie Annexe (Ottawa Art Gallery), and acquired by the City Of Ottawa. As a musician, he began writing and performing music in his teens and was a founding member and guitarist of My Dad vs. Yours, the critically-acclaimed band that recorded three albums from 2003 to 2012. As a DJ, he co-founded the dance party Kitchen Party in 2011 and continues to be active in the local DJ community.
Najeeba Ahmed (they/them) is an artist and a creative technologist based in so-called “Ottawa”. With a multi-disciplinary degree double majoring in Biology and Visual Arts from the University of Ottawa, they have a complementary range of experiences in laboratories, in education, NGOs, and studios across Canada and Asia. Najeeba’s artistic practice is currently centered around uncovering the tensions between technology, identity, consumerism and community through the lens of bio-art, generative art, XR, speculative design, and textile art. They are a natural tinkerer who is always curious about possibilities of design and craft technologies through experimentation and exploration. You may find their work through their pseudonym Ajeeb Sir.
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrick Kabeya is a Congolese-Canadian award-winning Documentary Producer currently based in Ottawa, Canada. With his films, Kabeya has earned a reputation for creating stories with a focus on Congolese colonial and political history and Pan-African historical figures. His six short documentary films and two full-length features have screened collectively in over 40 festivals across the globe, landing one ‘Audience Choice’ award for “Congo – A Political Tragedy” and getting nominated for the UNESCO Flemish Commission African Documentary of 2020, for his latest film ‘From Patrice to Lumumba’.
In 2021 he mentored the inaugural BIPOC creator program with the Digi60 festival. He also worked as a Line-producer for the Being Black In Canada series, Ottawa cohort 2021/2022. In the future, Kabeya plans to write and produce a Pan-African history series which will aim to highlight Pan-African leaders such as Thomas Sankara, Steve Biko and more
Hingman Leung is a self-taught independent filmmaker who uses storytelling for social good. Her background in film photography and music production combined with her intercultural research and professional expertise underpin her filmmaking approach. Her first documentary film, No Doggy Bag Please received the 2015 Public Ethnography Award from Royal Roads University and was selected to screen at the Waste in Asia Conference and Film Festival in 2015. Her 2020 narrative short, Curbside Pickup, received Best Director, Best Film, and Emerging Experimental Filmmaker awards at Digi60; and is currently in the festival circuit having been selected to the Toronto Short Film Festival and another soon-to-be-announced Canadian festivals.
Yan (Yanran Zhu) is a filmmaker and artist based in Toronto/Beijing. She was born and raised in Beijing, China, and studied and lived in Canada. She holds an MA degree in Film Studies from Carleton University, focused on post-colonial Cinema.
Ashford Sabastien Callender is an Ottawa-based experimental digital artist, as well as a community educator and organizer. Inspired by psychedelic futurism, he uses his background in audio and video post-production within creative mediums such as web, film, and video to explore and create thoughtful, immersive, cross-cultural audio/visual experiences — one of his primary goals is to encourage people to see art, primarily, as a participatory space where we all have the power to alter our capacity for connection and understanding… and also encouraging people to peer into the technology side of art, to help inspire and create new visions.
Nate Estabrooks is a graduate of the prestigious Norman Jewison Canadian Film Centre and member of the Director’s Guild of Canada. Nate Estabrooks is a workshop instructor with a wide and practical film path to draw from. As a talented feature director, VFX artist and award-winning screenwriter, he is a founding member of Space Tigers Inc, a production pipeline offering VFX and post-production services and continues to develop his toolset through 360 videos, VR storytelling and computer-generated imagery.
Aia Raafat is a trilingual Ottawa-Gatineau based communications professional and filmmaker. Aia has a Bachelor degree of Arts with honours and holds a Master of Arts from the University of Ottawa in Communications and Media Studies. During her studies, Aia worked as a teaching assistant at the UOttawa and conducted research analyzing video content on social media platforms. Driven by her passion for arts, Aia focuses her creative work on promoting the work of not-for-profit organizations in Canada via video content. Aia aspires to empower vulnerable and diverse populations including immigrant youth, racialized women and LGBTQ2+ communities with creative and artistic skills to tell their stories. Aia attended the Deutche Wille (DW) school for online blogging and video production where she trained in Germany’s national broadcasting studios. She then passed the certification exams for Adobe Premiere, Adobe After effects and Apple FinalcutX. Aia is currently exploring cost-efficient and innovative digital video techniques such as smartphone technology and VR to apply in her future video projects. Aia volunteered with UNISDR where she led the production of video content for the third world conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Sendai, Japan. She volunteered with the Daytime Ottawa crew at RogerTV cable 22 for several years. Aia has been working in communications and teaching video production for over 7 years now.
hiba ali is a producer of moving images, sounds, garments and words. they grew up in chicago and toronto and currently reside across eugene, or and austin, tx. they use 3d animation and digital art to create liminal spaces where they engage in world building, storytelling and digital poesis. in their practice, this term means a way to call forth more loving and healing into our world. they use virtual reality, 3d animation and augmented reality to slow down time and create portals of solace and care. their work has been presented in chicago, stockholm, vienna, berlin, toronto, new york, istanbul, são paulo, detroit, windsor, dubai, austin, vancouver, and portland. they have written for the following magazines: “c”, the seen, newcity chicago, art chicago, art dubai, the state, medium’s zora, rtv, and topical cream.
Penelope Walcott is an experienced sound designer, editor, and field recordist. Originally from Vancouver, BC, she now resides in Ajax, Ontario. Penelope began her career in sound as both a classical pianist and composer, having performed in Canada, UK, US and Italy; with pieces performed in Canada, Japan, and the UK. Penelope has been involved in audio post production for about 10 years, and has worked on both independent and documentary productions. Last year, she was chosen as one of 6 recipients for the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television’s Women in Post program. For Penelope, sound design is one of the most effective tools for creative story-telling, and she is always honoured to deepen both her knowledge and creative energy in the audio visual medium.
Ben Hoskyn is a cinematographer and producer across narrative features, live multi-cam shoots, viral ads and documentary series. He is a founding member of Space Tigers Inc, a production pipeline offering VFX and post-production services.
The Digital Arts Resource Centre (DARC) board of directors consists of 3-12 members, each elected for three-year terms. Elections are held annually at the members’ annual general meeting. Board members may serve consecutive terms but must stand for re-election by the membership.
67 Nicholas St, Ottawa, ON K1N 7B9