Special Toronto Film School Panel Speaks to Discrimination in the Entertainment Industry
How pervasive is discrimination in show business? How does racism, homophobia, sexism and all other forms of intolerance and inequity impact the entertainment industry? How can we, here at Toronto Film School, sow seeds of lasting change as we nurture this country’s creative voices of tomorrow?
Those are just a few of the questions a special, acting-focused panel discussion on Diversity in the Entertainment Industry tackled this week in response to the reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement.
Hosted by Hart Massey, director of Toronto Film School’s Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre program, the two-hour online discussion took place on Friday, June 12, featuring a diverse panel of faculty and special guests, including Adrian Currie, Ingrid Hart, Andrew Moodie, Daniel Ramnauth, Rosanna Saracino, and Chad Tailor.
“I think these kinds of conversations have been important always, because we are such a diverse school and we have representations of all kinds of cultural backgrounds, gender, sexual preferences in both our faculty and our student population,” Massey said of the discussion.
“We need to address this kind of intolerance, make sure it doesn’t happen in our classrooms, and look at how we, as a group, can improve the situation not only here in school, but also in the industry as a whole.”
As working performers themselves, each member of the panel was able to speak to discrimination they’ve personally experienced and witnessed themselves, and to talk about the ways in which they believe Black Lives Matter will impact the entertainment industry.
“I think this (movement) is much more than a trend. I don’t have the fear that this will in any way fade out, because the information is out there now – and it’s out there in a way, today, that it couldn’t have been distributed 20 years ago,” said Hart.
“Now we have directors like Ava DuVernay who are putting out movies that clearly, clearly illustrate the history of this systemic racism, what it is and how it started. I don’t think it’s a trend – we are witnessing, I believe, the tail end of what started in the ’50s and ’60s and that movement.”
To learn more about what other members of the panel had to say, watch the full webinar here.
About the Panelists:
Adrian is an actor and filmmaker, with Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Economics and History from McGill University. In addition to shooting commercials and playing parts in local film and television productions, Currie made a short film a few years ago called iRasta – a semi-autobiographical film detailing his adoption of the Rastafari culture and his transformation as a young man with Jamaican roots living in Toronto.
A member of the Green Party, Currie is also the Ontario representative to the Federal Council of the Green Party of Canada. As such, he is now one of 18 major decision makers in the GPC, as well as the outreach coordinator for the campaign to elect Annamie Paul as the new leader of the GPC. Currie is proud to be working with Annamie – a strong, Black woman of Caribbean decent, who is working to effect much needed change in Canadian society.
Currie is also a co-owner of Gallery 1017 – a contemporary art gallery located in the Junction district of Toronto. Gallery 1017’s mission is to highlight the work of local artists, giving them a platform to showcase their work and to get known in the community.
Ingrid Hart was born and raised in Toronto, Canada to Afro-Jamaican parents. She began her career in front of the camera as a fashion model and later studied theatre at New York City’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Perhaps best known for her lead role in Global Television’s improvisational drama, Train 48, Hart has more than 20 years of acting experience who has appeared in films such as How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and Saw IV and television series such as NBC’s Kojak and CBC’s Being Erica.
Hart is also Canada’s first certified teacher of the Chubbuck Technique – an empowering approach to script analysis used by Emmy, Tony, Academy and Joey award winners worldwide.
She has directly worked with actors represented in festivals such as the National Black Film Festival in Houston, Texas, the Alaska International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. In addition to her own private coaching practice, Ingrid teaches Camera Acting at Toronto Film School, which is proudly ranked as the 8th best film school in the world.
Multi award-winning, Ontario-based actor/playwright/director Andrew Moodie exploded onto the scene in 1995 with his first play, Riot, which won the 1996 Chalmers Award for Best New Play.
As a stage actor, he has performed in countless productions for companies all across Canada including the Great Canadian Theatre Company, Stratford, Young People’s Theatre, Soulpepper, Prairie Theatre Exchange and Shakespeare in the Ruff. Selected credits include: Our Country’s Good; Better Living; Macbeth; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Amadeus; Whale; Alice; Pinocchio; In the Field of Dreams; the Nelson Mandela Story; Health Class; The Incredible Speediness of Jamie Cavanaugh; Nathan the Wise; Master Harold and the Boys; and Othello.
He was the host of TVO’s Big Ideas from 2006 to 2011, and has made appearances in many film and television productions, including: Away From Her, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, Total Recall, Race, Covert Affairs, Being Erica, Reviving Ophelia, Da Kink in My Hair, Orphan Black, October Faction, and Gem’s Detention Adventure, among others.
His theatre writing credits include: Riot (Factory Theatre, 1995); Oui (Factory Theatre, 1998); Wilbur County Blues (Blythe Festival, 1998); A Common Man’s Guide to Loving Women (Canadian Stage/National Arts Centre, 1999); The Lady Smith (Passe Muraille, 2000); The Real McCoy (Factory Theatre 2007-2008); and the Dora Award-nominated Toronto the Good (Factory Theatre, 2009).
Daniel Demitri Ramnauth is a Canadian-born actor and musician. He plays guitar, bass, drums, piano and sings. Before pursuing acting, Ramnauth was the frontman and principle song writer for many bands. He has since graduated from the acting programs at both Seneca College and Toronto Film School.
Ramnauth has appeared in movies such as Beginner’s Luck and in TV shows like See No Evil. He is also a screenwriter who made his directional debut in this thesis film, Static, and has directed various projects since. He is currently a teaching assistant at Toronto Film School, and continues to write, direct, audition and perform.
Rosanna Saracino is an Italian-Canadian director, creative consultant, performance and public speaking coach, and educator.
Saracino has directed more than 80 productions – from opera to classical, contemporary and devised theatre – and, with her company redhanded, wrote and directed several shorts featured at various film festivals including LA Femme Film Festival in California.
She is also the founder and artistic director of art & lies productions, which focuses on devised, stylized and post-modernism. Her directing work includes: Fear and Misery of the Third Reich by Bertolt Brecht (Yonge Centre for the Performing Arts), The Other 99% (Factory Theatre), Dante’s Inferno (Factory Theatre, Theatre Smith-Gilmour), Nasty (Feminist FuckIt Festival), Antony and Cleopatra (Buddies in Bad Times), the world premiere live actor version of Provenance by Ronnie Burkett (Canadian Stage) and Suitcases (Canadian Stage).
Chad Tailor is an actor, producer, director, and LGBTQ+ community member. He is a current instructor at Toronto Film School who teaches Producing and Directing, and is also a former valedictorian for the Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre program.
Throughout the last decade, Tailor has produced and starred in several films of his own – including A Done Deal and Godforsaken – through his company Tailored Films. He’s also created commercial content for business clients, worked as a production coordinator and casting director on several indie productions, as well as produced and directed Toronto the Good for the stage at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre with Gisha Productions.
His film acting credits include TV’s Paranormal Witness, The Rendlesham Files, the independent short film Resist, screened at TIFF Bell Lightbox opening for the film Green Book, sci-fi short Technically Love, and action-feature The Face.
Tailor is an activist for equal rights and equal opportunities for all, and he looks forward to having these discussions about our industry.
