Gabriela Osio Vanden & Jack Weisman

Roles: Director

Jack Weisman aspires to make visually striking and original films that defy easy classification. His works of creative nonfiction have premiered at many festivals including Sundance, SXSW, TIFF, and IDFA. Jack’s breakout short, Nuisance Bear (2022), co-directed with Gabriela Osio Vanden, offers a gripping, wordless study of polar bears navigating human-dominated landscapes in Churchill, Manitoba. The film received widespread acclaim, earning a spot on the 95th Academy Award Shortlist, two Emmy nominations, and top honors at Cinema Eye Honors, Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, and IDA Documentary Awards.

Weisman is a co-founder of Documist, an Emmy and Peabody-winning production company based in NYC and Toronto. He served as an executive producer on The Territory (2022). The Territory premiered at Sundance, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize, and is now available on Disney+ through National Geographic Documentary Films.

 

Gabriela Osio Vanden is an award-winning Venezuelan-Canadian Director and cinematographer based in Toronto. She brings a background in painting and dance to her images which have premiered at major festivals, including TIFF, Camerimage, SXSW, IDFA, Sheffield DocFest, and True/False. She is a HotDocs 2022 Fellow. Her student thesis film “The Rambler” was awarded an internship with Phedon Papamichael ASC GSC whom she shadowed on Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing”. Gabriela has a BFA in Film Production from York University. Her latest film Nuisance Bear premiered at TIFF and played at over 120 Film Festivals. It won multiple awards but most notably a Critics Choice Award and Outstanding Non-Fiction Short at Cinema Eye Honors. It was shortlisted for the 95th Academy Awards.