Alison Duke

Founder

An award-winning writer-producer-director and passionate artistic activist committed to boldly telling stories of resistance and change. Recently, she co-wrote and co-produced the television documentary Mr. Jane and Finch (19) directed by Ngardy Conteh George which garnered two 2020 Canadian Screen Awards: the Donald Britain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary and Best Writing for a Documentary. During the same timeframe, she directed Cool Black North (19) a two-hour television documentary special  for CityTV/Rogers about the unique and vibrant Canadian Black Community and its role in our country’s contemporary identity. The movie goes about it through the POV of 15 former winners of the Harry Jerome Awards. The film was Roger’s top 10 streaming show in February 2019. 

Inspired by Ava Duvernay, #metoo and the reality that opportunities for women behind the camera in Canada are long overdue, Alison hired five Black female Canadian directors to helm short films for the Akua Benjamin Legacy Project (16) which celebrates the legacies of Canadian-based black activists Dudley Laws, Charles Roach, Rosie Douglas, Marlene Green and Len and Gwen Johnson.

Alison got her start directing and producing documentaries with the hip hop cult classic, Raisin’ Kane: a rapumentary (00). From there she worked as a segment producer and field director on syndicated factual and lifestyle shows. Eventually she made her way to social issue docs; A Deathly Silence (03). She also collaborations with other filmmakers as a producer; Andrew Nisker’s Garbage: The Revolution Stars at Home (07), Dany Chiasson’s My Joan of Arc (08) and Thomas Allen Harris’s Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photography and the Emergence of a People, ….. She is now focusing more attention to fictional storytelling. 

Promise Me (2020) her first short fiction inspired by the seminal HIV documentary The Woman I Have Become (08),  is currently touring the festival circuit after winning the Winston W. Moxam award for Best Canadian short film at the 2020 AfroPrairie Film Festival. Alison has an MFA at York University in film production and is sought after lecturer. 

She founded OYA Emerging Filmmakers Program (formerly Black Youth! Pathway2Industry), a 3-year initiative to support black youth who are graduates of film, television and digital media programs access essential training, mentors, networks and film industry spaces.