The National Directors Division (NDD) of the Directors Guild of Canada is proud to announce selections for the NDD Market Accelerator Delegation at Banff World Media Festival 2025, running from June 8th - 11th.
Selected Directors:
Adrienne Mitchell (ON): WE’RE ALL PERFECTLY FINE - follows Dr. Jamie Connor, a brilliant, work obsessed internist at an inner-city hospital as she cracks under the unbearable strain of doctoring. A frustration-fueled meltdown gets her sent to group therapy, where she and other broken doctors open up about the hellscape they call their inner-lives, before shoving it all back down and working another shift.
Alfonso Maiorana (QC): THE LAST TROMBONE PLAYER - Young Max Dante finds his own voice to escape the pressures of family and political upheaval through his love for music. *Alfonso Maiorana is also the Jean-Marc Valée Bursary Award Recipient*
Alison Murray (ON): MY LIE - 10 years after accusing her father of having sexually abused her as a child, a journalist with tunnel-vision drive recants her accusation. Now determined to free her father from prison, she faces fallout in her personal life, social backlash, and the resistance from a District Attorney who is an abuse survivor.
Arshad Khan (QC): SANA’S BASEMENT BEAUTY SOLUTIONS - Psychiatrist-turned-beautician Sana and her family find a unique way to avoid losing their dream home: by opening an illegal basement beauty salon where outer and inner healing solutions abound.
Berkley Brady (AB): HALFBREED - Based on Maria Campbell’s iconic memoir of the same name, Halfbreed begins with Maria's struggle as a young girl to keep her family together, and becomes her fight to bring the Métis people back together as she wrestles with becoming a cultural leader. It’s the story of a woman who lost her family, land, and home, but united her whole Nation.
Dylan Pearce (AB): ABOVE THE LINE - Above the Line is a half-hour workplace comedy in the spirit of Community and Parks and Recreation, set inside a chaotic small-city film office. Tasked with managing permits, personalities, and public meltdowns, this group of underpaid staffers walk the line between serving big Hollywood productions and passionate local dreamers who think a drone and a dog count as a film crew. It’s a love letter to behind-the-scenes absurdity in the industry—and the regular folks trying to keep the show on the road (and off private property). Tonally fast, smart, and heartfelt, it celebrates the unsung heroes of the movie machine with plenty of ego clashes, paperwork gags, and surprise cameos.
Jo Marr (BC): THE MURCAN'S - Behind the scenes of a production. Larry David meets Larry Sanders in the Office.
Kate Green (BC): IDEN-TECH-AL - Loosely based on a true story: unappreciated, underpaid and unseen, mismatched twin sisters, Ryleigh and Jules, team up to venture into the bro-dominated world of tech start-ups.
Michael Peterson (AB): I AM HEROD - The New NEW Testament is a half hour comedy series about a fledgling novelist who joins North America’s largest production of the Passion Play of Jesus Christ in Dinosaur Valley, Alberta, looking for a story to tell, and ends up leading this community of wide-eyed amateurs towards a miraculous (or disastrous) opening night. Based on Richard Kelly's acclaimed comic novel, I AM HEROD, this 10 x 30 minute series mixes the wry, but heartwarming fish-out-of-water humour of Ted Lasso; and Ghosts’ riotous and ridiculous tight-knit character ensemble. The project received development funding with Canadian broadcaster YesTV through the CMF Predevelopment Fund and part of the 2025 Canadian Comedy Accelerator.
Nat Boltt (BC): THE DRIFT - Drama with futuristic elements - a bereaved mother places herself in grave danger to retrieve her undead son from the afterlife. Limited mini series with multi season potential. Collaboration with Neil Blomkamp.
Panta Mosleh (BC): PASS THE SALT - Pass the Salt is a heartfelt romantic comedy about a queer Muslim woman and a Jewish woman in Vancouver who unexpectedly fall in love. As they navigate their blossoming relationship, they must also reconcile their identities, traditions, and family expectations. Through humor, heart, and cultural exploration, they learn to embrace their differences, celebrate their similarities, and find love in the most unexpected places.
Paolo Barzman & Rouzbeh Heydari (ON): HI JOLLY - An eight-part limited TV series about Hi Jolly, the first Middle Eastern cowboy, who braves the Wild West with camels, love, and defiance—transforming survival into a sweeping quest for identity and belonging.
Sid Santiago Zanforlin (ON): GORE BAY - Three teen rookie ghost hunters wake up in the isolated town of Gore Bay with no memory of how they got there. Trapped in a shifting labyrinth of supernatural doors, the trio relies on their amateur skills to survive relentlessly terrifying ghosts and monsters across place and time, in the hope that one door will finally lead them home.
Virginia Abramovich (ON): TASTELESS - Tasteless is a dark comedy about the imposter syndrome. When Lynn, a perimenopausal, Insta-curated, self-loathing dreamer, trying to hold on to her last scrap of validation as a foodie influencer lands a gig co-hosting a cooking show with her nemesis, she spars with him on air while struggling to hold her life together behind the scenes as she maneuvers and manipulates those around her to keep her deepest secret: that she's lost her sense of smell and taste.
