Ten young talents light up the silver screen

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      Luck didn't land these kids on our list. In fact, the lack of it probably did. Vancouver's 10 top young film-industry types are as different from each other as DVDs are from Super8. But they're united by their fantastically hard work, the obstacles they've overcome, and their outstanding goals.

      Hejar Berenji
      International TV activist, 26

      In 2004, Berenji arrived in Vancouver alone, unable to speak English, and rattled from three years as a refugee in Turkey. Kurdish, and originally from Iran, he came to Canada as a political refugee, leaving his family of musicians and businessmen behind. Welcome House helped him settle, and Wal-Mart gave him a job. Now, as a student at the Art Institute of Vancouver, he knows where he's going.

      “I want to build a TV station in Kurdistan that tells the truth,” he said. For an international audience, he also has plans. “Not everyone likes to watch CNN. If you can tell stories in a movie, it may be more effective.”

      For now, he's dreaming small. He would love to intern at a Vancouver TV station to hone his skills.

      Jennifer Johnston
      Tenacious agent, 21

      A run of terrible luck has finally ended well for Johnston. After she graduated at just 19 from Capilano College's motion-picture-production program, she went through seven jobs in one year. Two ended because the companies went out of business. One she quit. One she left because she felt scammed. One shut its western operations, another closed its Vancouver location, and yet another promised it was moving across town but never reopened. Plus, she worked on 15 short films, building her résumé.

      “When I started at Lucas Talent, I hadn't even been able to afford food for two weeks,” she remembered. “No matter what the world did to me, I never gave up—and it really paid off!”

      Since she started at Lucas just over a year ago, Johnston has maintained her dedicated work ethic, climbing from an assistant to a full-fledged agent. She noted that, as teenagers, both she and her father fixated on a career: he wanted to become an airplane pilot; she wanted to work in film. It worked out for both of them.

      Sanchia Wong
      Costumer extraordinaire, 30

      The Straight caught up with Wong on her half-hour lunch break in the middle of a 17-hour day. In demand, the Capilano College grad and Leo award nominee for InConvenience has been on a “roller coaster” since her family arrived here from Hong Kong 13 years ago.

      “I've always liked clothing,” said the UBC psychology grad and former Banana Republic salesperson. “But my parents wanted me to have a degree in something useful.”

      Wong's former instructor, Jane Still, had a laugh this summer when she was asked to replace Wong—who was unavailable—on set for a few days. The grasshopper has no ambitions, though, beyond doing the best job she can as a costumer.

      Brian Danin
      Festival captain, 21

      Part of the new wave of American political immigrants, Danin came to Vancouver from his liberal home in Meadow Springs, Colorado. Danin started the Vancouver Student Film Festival while still at UBC, as fellow American Leonard Schein did with the Ridge Theatre before him.

      “I'd eventually like to own a media company that has a good influence all over the world,” he said. “Like Fox, but with a different political agenda.”

      Danin might be lured back to the U.S. by his American girlfriend, but he enjoys Vancouver and would like to stay. He'd like to see the local industry develop a star system, and rely more exclusively on home-grown productions.

      DJ Parmar
      World's youngest producer, 21

      Just 21 and already a Vancouver Film School graduate and working producer, Parmar might seem like someone who obviously has a few family connections in the industry. Nope. Parmar is descended from doctors, real-estate agents, and millworkers.

      “Vancouver doesn't have a strong young South Asian filmmaking community,” the All In producer told the Straight. “Growing up, a lot of us were shoved away from film and into more concrete fields.”

      Parmar's company, Doxa Productions Ltd, has two TV series in development with Keatley Entertainment, and is working on several features, none of which he'll disclose. He describes himself as workaholic and single, but claims the two are not related.

      Julian Rosenberg
      Big-time agent, 22

      Vancouver isn't fast enough for this ambitious Kitsilano boy. After one year at the Pacific Audio Visual Institute, during which Rosenberg won the Great Canadian Commercial Contest and made Nostalgia Boy (which is travelling the festival circuit), he moved to Sherman Oaks.

      “For me, the industry has always been about success on the business side of things over the creative,” he said. “I want to be Jeremy Zimmer, not just because he is a top Hollywood agent but because he founded a top international agency.”

      Rosenberg, now an agent with the United Talent Agency, is working 14-hour days and reading scripts on weekends. Living the L.A. lifestyle, in other words.

      Keeley Bunting
      Nontraditional animator, 27

      On the little finger of Bunting's right hand is the iron ring she earned as a super-techie in computer engineering at McGill University. But she's now at the Emily Carr Institute to soak up the creative process. Bunting's diverse interests have led to a complex goal: converging film, animated storytelling, and the interactive qualities of video games.

      “There's a guy in the States who just bought the rights to Choose Your Own Adventure to make into DVDs,” she said. “What I want to do is kind of like that: more like a movie that you navigate through yourself.”

      Her well-thought-out path: “If I start with engineering, I can do anything afterwards.”

      Kevin Priebe
      Makeup mechanic, 32

      As a teenager, Priebe loved dirt bikes and working in his dad's mechanic's shop in Maple Ridge. He doesn't remember much about the motorcycle accident that, at 18, left him a paraplegic and took away his dreams of following in his dad's footsteps. After seven years of floating through universities, he found an unlikely niche.

      “At first they [Blanche Macdonald Centre's registrars] didn't think I was serious,” he said. “So I took a nail course.”

      As a certified nail aesthetician—and welder—he reapplied and was accepted. After completing his makeup and special-effects course, he went on to win a Leo for A Soldier's Story, and is working on short films. The connection between mechanics and movie makeup is strong, he said. “Both are about problem-solving.”

      Eiko Ishiwata
      Cultured composer, 24

      A lifelong musician, Ishiwata has had her hands filled with piano music since she was a child. Growing up in St. John's, Newfoundland, though, she had plenty of eclectic influences on her own style. Japanese video-game and anime music, the island's Celtic sound, and pop coming to the Rock on radio waves make her scores stand out.

      “It's medieval, yet Asian,” she said with a laugh, moments before her last day of classes at the Art Institute on September 15.

      Her ultimate goal: to bring her sound to big-budget, epic Hollywood features, and work alongside composers such as Hans Zimmer and Joe Hishaishi. Ishiwata's mother, Fukimo Ishiwata, makes films about Canada for the United Nations.

      Kelvin Redvers
      Small town, big dreams, 19

      Heading into his second year at SFU, Redvers already has an impressive string of awards trailing him. His short films have won top places at the International Youth Film Festival in Tirol, Austria; the 2005 Hamptons International Film Festival; the 2005 Westport Youth Film Festival; the 2005 International Student Media Festival in Orlando, Florida; the 2006 NSI National Exposure Amateur Movie Contest; et cetera. In other words: watch out, world.

      Redvers, though, comes from the least Hollywood of places. He's Chipewyan Métis from a town of 3,500 in the Northwest Territories. His life story up to this point: “Some boy in a small town got bored 'cause there was nothing else to do and started making movies.” Ultimately, he said, he'd like to work on “comfortably budgeted” feature films and show the world what he sees.

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