July 14, 2014 Toronto National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has named Justine Pimlott and David Oppenheim as producers at the NFB’s Ontario Centre.
Pimlott and Oppenheim, who assume their duties this fall, will join executive producer Anita Lee and producer Lea Marin at the NFB’s English Program production centre in Toronto.
Canada’s public producer, the NFB works with cutting-edge audiovisual storytellers to push creativity, innovation and social impact in documentary, animation and interactive works. The Ontario Centre has played a leading role in expanding the formal and creative boundaries of non-fiction storytelling and defining the possibilities of the interactive documentary, through such acclaimed works as Sarah Polley’s genre-bending feature film Stories We Tell and Katerina Cizek’s multi-year, multi-media project HIGHRISE. Since May 2014, the Centre has been led by Lee, an award-winning producer with 20 years’ experience in the industry and a stellar track record of collaborating with top talent and innovating in form, story and technology.
• Justine Pimlott is committed to giving a voice to people and points of view that are often absent from the mainstream media landscape―a key priority for the NFB as it embarks on its new POV documentary strategy.
• In 2003, she formed Red Queen Productions with Maya Gallus to create provocative films about women, social issues, culture and the arts. Most recently, she produced Derby Crazy Love, which was launched at RIDM in Montreal in 2013. Pimlott’s credits at Red Queen also include the six-part series on women’s boxing, Punch Like a Girl, which received two Gemini nominations for Best Direction; Fag Hags: Women Who Love Gay Men, winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Inside Out Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Canadian Film at the Reelout Festival; Dish: Women, Waitressing & the Art of Service; Girl Inside, winner of the Gemini Award for Best Direction in a Documentary; and the 2011 NFB co-production The Mystery of Mazo De La Roche, nominated for three Canadian Screen Awards and recipient of the Golden Sheaf Award for Best Social Issue Documentary.
• Pimlott began her film career at the NFB on a Studio D internship designed to promote women in technical roles, before going on to work in all the key areas of documentary film production. She is a board member for DOC Canada.
• As Head of Documentary Development at Kensington Communications, David Oppenheim developed social-issue, history and arts documentary projects across all platforms. His award-winning work in webdocs will help Ontario Centre and the NFB to continue to pioneer breakthroughs in interactive documentary storytelling.
• Most recently, Oppenheim worked with Kensington Communications on a location-based mobile app for the Royal Ontario Museum and founded Kilter Media to develop film, television and transmedia documentary projects. As producer and Head of Documentary Development from 2007 to 2011, Oppenheim led development of Kensington’s film, television and interactive projects, including the feature doc Raw Opium; City Sonic, a transmedia series with White Pine Pictures, nominated for a Gemini Award for Best Original Program/Series (Digital Media, Non-Fiction); as well as Museum Secrets Interactive, a web and mobile production that was nominated for best cross-platform project at both the Gemini Awards and the Banff World Media Festival. He first worked with Kensington in 2005, as a researcher for its Gemini Award-winning documentary series Diamond Road, before returning as producer/content lead/writer on its webdoc Diamond Road Online, winner of a Canadian New Media Award.
• An alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab, Oppenheim began his media career in 2002, working as a series producer for CBC, CBC Newsworld, Alliance Atlantis/Discovery Health Channel and TVOntario.
Jennifer Mair
NFB Publicist
Tel.: 416-954-2045
Cell: 416-436-0105
E-mail: j.mair@nfb.ca
Twitter: @NFB_Jennifer
Melissa Than
NFB Publicist
Tel.: 416-952-8960
Cell: 647-248-9854
E-mail: m.than@nfb.ca
Twitter: @NFB_Melissa
Lily Robert
Director, Corporate Communications, NFB
Tel.: 514-283-3838
Cell: 514-296-8261
E-mail: l.robert@nfb.ca
Beginning May 2, 2014, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) marks 75 years of innovation and leadership in social-issue documentaries, auteur animation, and most recently, groundbreaking interactive works. The NFB has produced over 13,000 productions and won over 5,000 awards, including 8 Webbys, 9 Canadian Screen Awards, 12 Oscars and more than 90 Genies. To access acclaimed NFB content, visit NFB.ca or download its apps for smartphones, tablets and connected TV.
