ACCOLADES TO…
York film students for Doctors with Borders
The “Accolades to” series showcases York University’s vibrant cultural community by profiling faculty, students, alumni and friends who deserve accolades for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the fine arts. Supporting this creative talent, York’s new Accolade buildings will offer Canada's future artists, scholars and educators a state-of-the-art teaching, exhibition and performance complex in which to learn, create and innovate. Opening in 2005/2006, the Accolade Project reflects York’s stature as a rising cultural powerhouse and key partner in Toronto's cultural renaissance.
Documentary by York U’s film students addresses plight of foreign doctors
‘Doctors with Borders’ to air on Rogers OMNI.1 on June 11 and 18
TORONTO, June 10, 2005 – York University’s up-and-coming filmmakers are seeing their work broadcast on prime-time TV in a diversity of languages, thanks to support from Rogers OMNI Television.
Doctors with Borders, a one-hour documentary created by upper-year students in York’s Department of Film, presents compelling portraits of four highly-skilled, foreign-trained doctors and the challenges they have faced in trying to get licensed to practice in Ontario. The program is aimed at raising awareness on a controversial and topical issue: the shortage of family doctors in the province, and the plight of immigrants whose professional qualifications are not fully recognized within the health system.
“Doctors with Borders is a portentously meaningful achievement,” said York Professor Tereza Barta, a Gemini Award-winning filmmaker who served as project coordinator. “It is palpable evidence of the level of maturity, creative talent and thoughtful engagement with which the new generation of Canadian filmmakers is addressing crucial issues in our society.”
Doctors with Borders was produced in Cantonese, Mandarin and Spanish, in addition to English and funded through OMNI’s Independent Producers’ Initiative. The English language version made its world television premiere earlier this spring as part of OMNI’s Signature Series. Viewers can catch an encore presentation OMNI.1 this Saturday, June 11 at 9:00 p.m. The documentary premieres for Cantonese-speaking viewers on OMNI.2 that same evening at 8:00 p.m. (alternate broadcast: June 15 at 10:00 a.m.) and for the Spanish-language audience on OMNI.1 on June 18 at 10:00 p.m. (alternate broadcast: June 23 at 2:00 pm). Further scheduling information will be posted @ www.omnitv.ca when it becomes available.
Doctors with Borders was conceived and carried out as an extra-curricular project by York’s Film Department. Each of the four segments was created by a team of upper-year students, mentored by faculty members who are themselves professional filmmakers. The students were involved in all aspects of the productions: researching and interviewing the subjects, scriptwriting, directing, cinematography, sound, editing and post-production.
The York students who directed the four segments of Doctors with Borders are Franci Duran, who has just completed her second year of studies the Masters program in film; Hugh Gibson, who graduated from York’s film program last year; fourth-year student Marc Betsworth; and Aaron Van Borek, who is graduating this month with his BFA in film.
Duran created the portrait of Nazia Tauseef (Pakistan) under the mentorship of film professor Brenda Longfellow. Married with two children, Tauseef is an obstetrician and gynecologist with 10 years of clinical experience. In Canada for just a year, she was working as a receptionist at a walk-in-clinic at the time of filming. Her story is the first segment in Doctors with Borders.
The second segment is a portrait of Slobodan Lemecz (Bosnia), created by Gibson under the guidance of Antonin Lhotsky. Lemecz was an affluent and experienced physician in Bosnia, who ran two clinics during the siege of Sarajevo before fleeing with his family to Toronto in 1994. Since then, he has struggled to build a new life and practice his profession.
Betsworth created the portrait of Abdel Bashir (Sudan) under the mentorship of Laurence Green (Alter Egos, Thin Ice). Bashir left his war-torn homeland a decade ago with the dream of living in a peaceful country and pursuing his career in medicine. Keeping this dream alive proved to be a formidable challenge as he faced the onerous task of transferring his medical knowledge into a reticent Ontario system.
The final segment, a portrait of Gabriel Cardenas (Guatemala), was created by Van Borek under Barta’s guidance. After finishing his medical degree in his homeland, Cardenas wanted a life of greater opportunity and security for his wife and baby daughter, and immigrated to Canada with his family in 1987. In making the move, Cardenas was faced with a compromise he hadn’t fully anticipated: not being able to put his medical knowledge into full practice as he had always dreamed of doing.
For the student directors, making these films was an intense and often emotional experience. Van Borek reflected: “Gabriel has such a kind and generous spirit that I think anyone who meets him, or watches his story in the documentary, can’t help but like him and want to know more about him. Gabriel let my crew and me into his home, into his family and into his heart, sharing his deepest feelings and thoughts with us. He even shared a delicious Guatemalan meal with us. He has a very fatherly nature and he considers all of us who worked on the project friends, and has invited us back to visit. I am so thankful to have met him and been given the chance to learn about him and his story.”
York University's film department is recognized nationally as a leading centre for professional education in the field. It offers hands-on studio training in all aspects of production, screenwriting and directing, combined with studies in film history, theory and criticism. Alumni of the program include the principals of Rhombus Media, Canada’s leading producer of arts documentaries; Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Karen Shopsowitz (My Father’s Camera, Canada’s War in Colour); and internationally recognized director and cinematographer Ali Kazimi (Narmada, Shooting Indians, Continuous Journey).
Now celebrating its 25th year of diversity broadcasting, Rogers OMNI Television is a free over-the-air system owned by Rogers Communications under its Rogers Media: Television division. Through its operation of ethnic television stations OMNI.1 (CFMT) and OMNI.2, Rogers OMNI has significantly expanded the variety of languages, number of hours and choice of programming being offered for ethnocultural communities throughout Ontario – Canada’s most ethnically diverse province. Combined, the Rogers OMNI stations provide programming in more than 40 languages to ethnocultural groups encompassing close to 50 communities. With the launch of OMNI.2 in September 2002, ethnic programming on OMNI.1 (CFMT) now principally serves the local European, Latino and Caribbean communities, while OMNI.2’s programming reflects the local Pan Asian and African population.
York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 180,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 21 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges.
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For further information, please contact:
Melissa Hughes, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-2100 x 22097/ mehughes@yorku.ca
Biographical notes on the student directors below.
Born in Chile, Franci Duran came to Canada as a refugee after the military coup toppled president Salvador Allende. In 1991, she produced the critically-acclaimed, award-winning short film Cuentos de mi niñez (Tales From My Childhood). From 1991-1997, she worked in the independent film industry as a production coordinator and producer’s assistant in Toronto and Vancouver where she worked with various well-known filmmakers. She was one of the founding members of Corrientes del Sur, a collective of Latin American filmmakers living in Canada. Her films focus on politics, race, representation, popular culture, memory and the intersection points of these.
Fresh out of York University’s film and video program, Hugh Gibson has already attained a high level of distinction in his profession. His fourth-year graduation production, Hogtown Blues, caught the attention of a string of international film festivals. In addition to making films, he worked at Toronto production company Triptych Media, where he helped to shape their films Falling Angels and The Republic of Love, while rubbing shoulders with director Deepa Mehta. As well, he worked for acclaimed director Peter Lynch and, more recently, for Paris-based sales agent Celluloid Dreams. In 2005, he attended the Berlinale Talent Campus and underwent a training program for documentary directors at the National Film Board of Canada.
Building on ten years of production and business experience in the Canadian film and television industry, Marc Betsworth is now making the transition to the director’s chair. He recently wrote, directed and edited the short film The Patient (2004). Under his newly-formed company Sonopix Media Inc., he is in pre-production on a number of projects, including a short film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic short story Indian Camp. Previously, he produced numerous award-winning short films and television productions, including Road Songs: A Portrait of Robbie Robertson for CBC’s Life & Times series, and the feature film Beefcake which was released by Odeon in Canada and Strand Releasing in the U.S.
Combining his passion for film and video with a background in visual arts, Aaron Van Borek strives to create projects that express the human experience in unique and powerful ways. His main interest is documentary filmmaking that deals with social, equity and environmental issues.
