NSI Drama Prize faculty
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Joy Loewen | program manager
Joy has been with NSI since 2005. She manages NSI Drama Prize and the director phase of NSI Storytellers, and coordinated NSI Pitch Your Project 360! at the Banff World Television Festival in 2006 and 2007.
Joy has over 20 years of experience as a broadcaster, producer and trainer in the Canadian film and television industry.
She successfully contributed to the set-up and launch of WTN – the Women’s Television Network through establishing appropriate programming systems, reports and procedures for the distribution of the network’s programming material. Joy was acquisitions manager at WTN responsible for programming and scheduling movies, documentaries, lifestyle series and shorts. This role involved attendance at local and international program markets such as MIPTV in Cannes, France and Hot Docs in Toronto. Additionally, she produced several seasons of an international fashion show In Fashion.
Prior to NSI, Joy was an associate producer at CBC Television responsible for developing and producing regional programs. She was the publicist for Winnipeg’s inaugural Jewish Film Festival and Women’s Film Festival, re*VISIONS.
Joy is a proud alumna of Ryerson Polytechnic University and active volunteer in her community.
She may also have the world's biggest collection of eye glasses.
E. Jane Thompson | program advisor
A two-time Gemini Award winner, Thompson is recognized as a veteran director of prime-time television series. Among her credits are ‘da Kink in My Hair, Cold Squad, Traders, Madison, The Rez, My Life As A Dog, Ready or Not and 46 episodes of the breakthrough improv comedy/drama Train 48. Her early short films, At the Lake and Letter from Francis, drew critical acclaim and garnered prizes at film festivals throughout North America. The Globe & Mail called Thompson's television movie Coming of Age a “beautifully realized, bittersweet drama” and The Ottawa Citizen called it “honest, refreshingly understated, and self-possessed.”
Thompson is currently developing two feature films: an immigrant boy’s coming of age story in Sex Lives of the Saints (producer Phyllis Laing, Buffalo Gal Pictures) and a psychological thriller, The Berliner Complex (screenwriter Katherine Collins, producer Daniel Bekerman), which went through the NSI Features First program.
Thompson participated in NSI’s DramaLab Program (precursor to the NSI Drama Prize Program) and twice was invited to return to the NSI for Local Heroes with her short films. She holds an Honours B.A. in Film Studies from Queen’s University.
Thompson is a founder of Women in Film and Television – Toronto. She served two terms as a Board Member of the Directors Rights Collective of Canada. For the Directors Guild of Canada, she chaired the Strategic Planning Committee through to creation of a multi year plan which received unanimous endorsement from the executive and membership. Thompson has led director workshops for the Canadian Screen Training Centre, NSI, and the Canadian Film Centre.