BIO: Andy Chu is a producer, creative director, and cultural storyteller with more than two decades of experience shaping narrative across television, film, digital media, and live events. As the founder of Arc2 Intertainment and FMA Entertainment, Andy has built a reputation for producing bold, visually rich content – from New York Fashion Week and the Tribeca Film Festival to the Stripped Concert Series, FMA Fashion Week, and the Vancouver-based food series Bites and Sips.
BIO: Julie Bruns is an actor, writer, director and producer with over a decade of experience. She’s created multiple award-winning shorts and webseries before discovering verticals last year. Now, she’s acted in nearly 20 vertical productions, and branched into independent production—writing and starring in the upcoming action-adventure vertical, Beneath Crimson Sails.
BIO: Monika Dalman is a Casting Director based in Vancouver, BC, with nearly a decade of experience casting both union and non-union projects of all sizes around the world. Since stepping into the world of vertical filmmaking in late 2023, Monika has become a passionate advocate for making these sets safer, fairer, and more sustainable for everyone involved. She sees vertical microdramas as more than just a trend – they represent a powerful opportunity to get actors and crew back on set, earning fair wages, supporting their families, and doing what they love most: making great films. In uncertain times, verticals offer consistent, meaningful work for the people who keep this industry alive.
BIO: Sijing Yang is a Chinese Canadian director and editor specializing in romantic and family genres. A leading voice in the emerging vertical-drama space, she has directed 13 series across platforms such as ReelShort, DramaBox, DreameShort, and DramaWave, together amassing more than 100 million views worldwide. Her most viewed series’ – Mafia King’s Missing Wife Back with Twins and Finally See You: Carrying Our Baby – combine cinematic storytelling with the fast-paced intimacy that defines vertical viewing.
Moderator BIO: Georgia Guthrie is a film journalist and host of Film Picnic, a podcast exploring the Canadian film industry through in-depth conversation. Covering festivals such as VIFF, TIFF, Whistler, and Crazy8s, her work highlights the people shaping Canada’s cinematic landscape. Her scholarly research examines representations of queer identity and socio-economic class in popular media, including Melodrama and Queer Survivance in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005), reflecting her commitment to inclusive and critical perspectives in film.
BIO: Justin F. Lee is a writer, producer, and sailor keen on intimate stories with large spectacle, usually exploring his nautical and uniformed upbringing. His debut short film “Knots” recently premiered at Reelworld in Toronto. The vertical web series “The Summer I Found Myself”, recently won Best Film (Vertical) at the Might Asian Movie Making Marathon. He is now developing his 1st feature film that aims to capture over 80 years of Sea Cadet history at the training base HMCS Quadra in Comox.
