Push In - The CineVic Podcast

Who else but innovative City of Victoria Artist-In-Residence Kemi Craig would find links between Afrofuturism, west African free divers’ traditional spiritual practice of Orisha, and the spirits of captives drowned in the west African slave trade? 

In work encompassing immersive, multi-sensory, site-specific installations and performances, this innovative dancer, filmmaker, multi-media creator and performance artist create...

From how to apply for the position, to how much you’ll get paid, Victoria’s 2022-24 Artist-in-Residence Kemi Craig shares everything you ever wanted to know about her job but were afraid to ask!

Kemi is a dancer, filmmaker, multi-media creator and performance artist whose work encompasses immersive, multi-sensory, site-specific installations and performances that encourage audience and community engagement. 

After getting her start i...

You may say you’ll never do it but, if you’re an indie filmmaker, chances are at some point you’re probably going to wind up producing your own work. In this fun and frank episode, actor, writer, director, and producer Ana de Lara really tells it like it is: Why ultra low budget films are so tough to produce, how she ended up producing in the first place, and why producing  isn’t fun! An accomplished actor, Ana also shares what it’...

 With all the talk about toxic masculinity, it’s a real treat to watch a film that explores traditionally held “masculine” qualities like aggression, competitiveness — even homophobia — while also acknowledging masculinity’s potential for tenderness, nurturance, and protectiveness. Working with amateur actors from the Bogotá barrio, filmmaker Andrés Felipe Ángel manages to pull that off and more in his sensitive autobiographical co...

When you’re on set and your film deals with the potentially triggering subject of suicide, how do you provide for the physical and emotional needs of a diverse cast and crew? This was the challenge that led filmmaker Ana de Lara to collaborate with Women In the Director’s Chair to develop a ground breaking new program called Safer Creative Spaces. In this episode, Ana shares how the program helped her create a more caring environme...

Is your concept brave enough to be “not safe, taboo," or “mean and awful”?  Filipina/Canadian filmmaker Ana de Lara thinks it just might make a great comedy! In Part I of our interview with this multiple award-winning Filipina/Canadian actor/writer/director/producer, Ana tells us about Best Friend Me—her six-episode comedy web series that involves the topic of...suicide? 

Learn from this comedy pro how she  works with...

The brutal “treatments” that the Canadian government and CIA jointly funded at the height of the Cold War era’s brainwashing paranoia are the stuff of nightmares. Patients with diagnoses as innocent as postpartum depression were rendered virtual zombies for life, creating a legacy of intergenerational trauma and perpetrator guilt that inspired filmmaker Emanuel Foucault’s riveting short film Washer. In this episode Emanuel describe...

If you’re interested in ways a filmmaker’s career can advance, this is an episode you won’t want to miss!  Listen up as multiple award-winning Vancouver writer/director Connor Gaston shares the roots of his fascination with reincarnation, the value of graduating from programs like the Canadian Film Centre and the TIFF Talent Lab, and what ultimately got him meetings in Hollywood that landed him an LA manager.

Connor’s films have scr...

There’s certain to be lots that filmmakers and other creatives can relate to in part one of Joyce Kline’s two-part interview with Vancouver based, internationally award-winning, writer/director Connor Gaston. With humour and rare honesty, Connor shares the joys and challenges of growing up in a household of writers, adapting his own father’s novel, collaborating with his brother Vaughn, directing children, and how he bounces back w...

Last episode, we heard from one of the most requested camera operators in Canada, award-winning, daredevil cinematographer DAVID MALYSHEFF.  David is known for delivering the goods under extreme conditions - filming from horseback, helicopters, and even Zodiacs crashing their way through rapids.

This episode, David fills us in on his quieter, but no less moving, personal passion project - creating a 90-minute documentary ...

Not many cinematographers shoot on submarines or from horseback, helicopters and kayaks - but today’s guest filmmaker, award-winning industry veteran David Malysheff, has done exactly that. 

With more than 25 years of television production experience in film and broadcast video, David Malysheff has been behind the camera on numerous Canadian TV shows including The Nature of Things, The Fifth Estate, The Amazing Race, Moo...

Film sets are high pressure environments with brutally long hours and the traditionally hierarchical structure of a military campaign. In this episode, filmmaker and much sought-after editor Lesley Marshall tells us how she balances the needs of her young daughter with her work in the film industry, why she thinks we should demand on set childcare, and what employing anti-oppression based filmmaking and horizontal leadership struct...

Unless you’re already a well-heeled nepo baby, this might be the one Push In episode you literally can’t afford to miss! Last episode, Push In interviewed filmmaker Denver Jackson, the brilliant creator and one-man animation team behind the web series Esluna: The Crown of Babylon, the feature Esluna: The First Monolith and the upcoming feature The Worlds Divide.

This episode, Denver shares how he’s financed his films, why...

Pride yourself on being hard working and dedicated to your art? Well, this interview with award-winning Victoria animator Denver Jackson will make you feel like a total slacker! Buckle up as this one-man powerhouse shares how he got into animation, the brutal details of his typical work day, the importance of keeping focus to complete projects, and why he’ll never use generative AI.

Denver Jackson has singlehandedly written, directe...

This September, after over 40 years, Victoria’s iconic Pic A Flic Video will close, imperiling its unrivaled collection of 25,000 cult classics, musicals, foreign films, sci-fi, short films, silent movies, independent animations and rare documentaries you can’t find anywhere else. 

Video stores may be an endangered species, but losing this treasure trove of film history would be an extinction event! That’s why Push In’s ho...

Host Joyce Kline reaches across the Pacific for a fun chat with Singapore based, BAFTA-nominated animator Calleen Koh.  Calleen’s short To Kill the Birds and the Bees—a real highlight of this year’s Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival—will screen again in Ottawa June 21st as part of Short Circuit’s National Tour. 

Hear how this talented young filmmaker stays gutsy with her daring and quirky material and her take on eve...

In this fun episode, Joyce meets up with writing/directing team Sonya Chwyl and Anik Desmarais-Spencer. Their latest short horror comedy Slip poses a sadly relatable question for these inflationary times: “How far will you go to keep your shitty rental?” 

Slip just won Audience Choice at this year’s Short Circuit Pacific Film Festival and you can watch it on the big screen for free in Regina, Ottawa and St. John’s as part of Short C...

What’s it like to pitch to a panel of judges in front of a live theatre audience— when you think you’re awful at pitching? That was the challenge for multi-talented filmmaker Daniel Kwon, the writer, director, editor and co-producer of 2022’s Cinespark winning film The Girl in the Forest.

Daniel is a true renaissance man: filmmaker, screenwriter, director, editor, colorist, set decorator, videographer, graphic designer, mo...

Every screenplay has at least one element that a filmmaker knows is going to be tricky to carry off. But when the script demands you track down an elusive rare bird and find a location where an actor can safely fell a giant tree with a hand axe, you’re going to have to get extra creative. How director James Hunter, with the help of producer Faith Gouga, managed to pull all this off in their haunting short film NEST—is a fascinating...