Getting your debut narrative feature made is an enormous achievement, but finishing the film is only part of the journey. How do you get from the final cut to a premiere, a sales agent or distributor, and ultimately an audience?

This panel brings together a group of first-time feature filmmakers to unpack the realities of completing and launching a debut feature. We’ll explore the challenges that emerge from pre-production through production and post-production, including festival strategy, premieres, distribution, marketing, and audience building. Our guests will share lessons from their own experiences, including what they wish they had known before making their first film and how emerging filmmakers can make strategic choices with limited resources.

Whether you’re preparing to shoot your debut, deep in post-production, or wondering what comes after “picture lock,” this conversation will offer practical advice, honest insights, and a roadmap for getting your film finished—and getting it seen.

[PANELIST] Misha Maseka is a filmmaker, artist and researcher based between Calgary and London, UK. Starting her career in opera performing across Canada, the United States and Germany is evident in her cinematic translation of spectacle in her study of intimacy, history, heritage and the mundane. Founding her production collective Village Girls in 2022, her debut short film NOT THAT DEEP won two Berlin Short Film Festival awards leading her to the development of her first feature film, ALL THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE ARE GONE, set against the backdrop of 1970s Zambian psychedelic rock and roll. Her work has been shown at film festivals internationally and at multiple institutions including: Contemporary Calgary, Somerset House, SOAS, Frameless London, Oxford University, Villa Romana Cultural Institut Florence, University of Leiden and more. With a masters degree from the Royal College of Art, when not creating, Misha continues academic research in Afro-Luse intangible cultural heritage and the African film archive.

[PANELIST] Adam Yorke is a filmmaker from Toronto, Ontario. PHREAKER is his feature directorial debut. His feature script BOXMAN was on the 2023 Blacklist and sold to Lionsgate with Range Media Partners producing. His feature SEE FOR ME, which he co-wrote and co-produced, premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and was released by IFC midnight films, becoming the number one independent film on VOD in its first week. SEE FOR ME was hailed by Variety as “a cult classic in the making.” His short film BUNKER BURGER premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival where it was nominated for best narrative short. His latest short film, THE CUBE AND THE SPHERE, is available on CBC Gem. Adam is currently adapting “Cracking the Nazi Code: The Untold Story of Canada's Greatest Spy” by Jason Bell into a feature for Wildling Pictures.

[PANELIST] Jessie Posthumus is a Canadian genderqueer writer and director with a track record of internationally acclaimed dramatic short films, including HOW’S ARCHIE? (2025). Their films explore poetic realism and are marked by empathy and a sense of humour. Posthumus recently wrapped production on their debut feature, ROCKET FUEL, shot on 16mm and based on the short film of the same name. The short screened at Palm Springs, VIFF, FNC, FIN, Regard, and Riverrun, and won Best Short Film at Pendance.

[PANELIST] Salima Stanley-Bhanji is a director, producer and lawyer whose work explores identity, belonging and the spaces in between. Her short films, made in four languages, have received more than 50 festival selections and awards worldwide. A co-creator of the Calgary/Moh’kins’tsis-based SHADES film platform which centres and celebrates Black, racialized and queer women, this year Salima was part of the Racial Equity Screen Office's PrimeTime delegation in Ottawa and a Fellow with the South Asian Canadian Film Federation at Banff World Media Festival. She is currently directing and producing a short Calgary Arts Development-funded dance documentary exploring biracial/multiracial identity and a TELUS originals feature hybrid documentary, SUBI + TINA, which follows two married queer South Asian women navigating love, family, and their open relationship on the Canadian Prairies.

[MODERATOR} Megan Shott is an Edmonton-based filmmaker proudly from Fort McKay First Nation and Chipewyan Prairie First Nation. Following an international festival run for her debut short film, MY GIRL she transitioned into producing her first feature length project, LAST STOP VIDEO RENTALS, in 2023, which premiered in Edmonton last year and is now preparing for the physical media release this November. Megan is a University of Calgary social work alumna and participated in the CISF's Connect inaugural cohort. Informed by grassroots initiatives, she is expanding the presence of independent, Indigenous-led narratives in the (so-called) Canadian market.