Mars Horodyski – Director, Producer, and Co-Writer

Mars Horodyski is is an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Director’s Lab and the Berlinale Talent Campus. She has over a decade of directing experience working on short films, documentaries and most recently directing on the award winning television series The Next Step. She co-wrote, produced and directed Ben’s at Home which is her first feature film.
Horodyski’s films have screened at various festivals including the Montreal World Film Festival, the Atlantic Film Festival, the Whistler Film Festival, the Commonwealth Film Festival as well as the highly acclaimed Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films. She is also the recipient of the Norman Jewison Filmmaker Award for her film Lemonade.

Following her residency at the CFC, Mars went on to the Universal Short Dramatic Film Program through which she directed her short film Spoonfed which won the Golden Remi at WorldFest in Houston and was nominated for Best Drama at the Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival. One of her most recent short films Toller premiered at the 2013 Rincon International Film Festival.
 
Earlier this year Mars was chosen as one of six women to develop her latest feature film through Ingrid Veninger’s inaugral pUNK Films Femmes Lab supported by Oscar winning actress Melissa Leo. She is also working on a follow up to Ben’s at Home with writing partner Dan Abramovici.

www.cinemars.ca

Dan Abramovici – Actor, Producer, and Co-Writer

Dan Abramovici has established himself as a respected actor, writer, filmmaker, and photographer over the last 12 years. He recently starred in Unlucky, The Way It Used To Be, The Case For Christmas, and co-wrote and starred in Altarcations, for which he earned 11 Official Selections as well as a Best Screenplay award. On television he can be found playing the role of Detective Marelli on the CW show Beauty and The Beast.

A founding member of Awkward Silence sketch comedy troupe, Dan’s live comedy resume includes appearances at Second City, The Groundlings, Yuk Yuks, as well as the Comedy Store in Los Angeles.

In 2012 he founded Awkward Silence Productions, and wrote, produced, and starred in the short films SCR_ _ BLE, Awkward Goodnight, Born This Way, and Mandella. All 4 films went on to receive international film festival success including numerous Audience Choice and Best Actor nods, appearing in over 20 international film festivals including Toronto’s CFC Worldwide, Berlin, Cucalorus, Los Angeles, Australia, and Puerto Rico.

Ben’s At Home marks Dan’s graduation to writing feature films, as he partnered up with his dream team of collaborators. On days off from writing Ben’s At Home creative partners Mars and Dan worked on the short comedy film Passages: TOLLER, which recently played on MTV and won Dan a Best Actor award when it played this past April in RIFF 2013.

Dan is also a CONTACT Festival photographer with a studio in downtown Toronto. He enjoys challah with nutella and making mix tapes like its 1997.

www.AwkwardSilenceProductions.com
www.DanAbramoviciPhotography.com
www.CallbackHeadshots.com
dan.abramovici@gmail.com
@Dan_Abramovici

Anneli Ekborn – Producer

Anneli Ekborn, originally born in England and of Swedish descent, is a multiple award-winning and Genie-nominated producer with three features and 15 short films under her belt. Awards include the Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Hot Docs. All of Anneli’s films have been screened worldwide, most recently in Berlin, Cannes, New York, Japan, and at TIFF and The American Film Institute. She carries a BFA in Film from Simon Fraser University and is an alumnus of The Canadian Film Centre and the National Screen Institute. In her spare time she works as a freelancer for the Toronto International Film Festival group as a workshop leader and speaker in their special delivery program that offers opportunities for youth in film. Anneli has worked on projects for the Canadian Film Centre, Temple Street Productions, Anagram Pictures and Slanted Wheel Productions.

David Hayman

@ SUPERSONIC, David will be focusing his attention on broadening music supervision services for exciting long-form branded transmedia projects, new media ventures and branded entertainment productions like the recently completed Cross-Canada Coca-Cola Beat Bus Tour, The CIBC Run For The Cure Concert with Walk Off The Earth and The Nestea Recruit Program.
David has been a music supervisor for ten years and has created soundtracks for many major feature films (Bang Bang Club, Cairo Time, The Whistleblower, Young People Fucking…), video games (Shaun White Skateboarding, Tech Dech Live…) worldwide broadcast television series and a plethora of major advertising campaigns (Coca-Cola, Dove, Blackberry, Ford, Budweiser, Telus, Bell….).
David is currently the music supervisor for the hit dramatic series Rookie Blue (ABC/Global) and Saving Hope (NBC/CTV). David has big plans for Supersonic Creative Inc as the young company forges many great relationships with the best studios in Canada, the US and France and with the company’s army of Jr Music Supervisors, they seem poised to take over the music-curation scene in 2013.
www.supersoniccreative.com www.themusicsuperblog.wordpress.com david@supersoniccreative.com @123Supersonic @DavidHueyHayman

Freedom or Death

In the 1820’s during the Greek War of Independence “Freedom or Death” became the war cry for the people of Greece. Their passion, belief and desires were so strong, that they accepted no substitute. The Toronto based duo adopted that name, as it’s their mantra when it comes to their music. “We want to have the freedom to make the music and the artistic choices that we want. If we can’t have that freedom, we’d rather not put anything out, which is the death of our art” says Fernandez, one half of the production and song writing unit. Freedom Or Death’s sound is based in everything, acoustic folk, electronica, traditional rock, hip-hop rhythms yet always rooted in lyrics with substance. “We didn’t want to get caged into any kind of pigeonhole,” Sway says. “That’s our freedom, to make the music however it comes out. We have two different sensibilities to making music that clash, but it’s how we actually reconcile them that’s interesting.”

Following the release of “EGO”, the bands most recent EP, released via Arts & Crafts, the band has been busy touring the world playing festivals in both North America and Europe including Osheaga, CMJ, SXSW, METL! Festival, C/O Pop Festival, and Berlin Festival among others. The band plans to carry this momentum into 2013 following the release of their upcoming album.
In early 2013, it came to the attention to the band that their music is accessible across several mediums, with placements in episodes of “Rookie Blue”, MTV’s “Awkward” and “Death Valley”, and Sarah Michelle Gellars’ “Ringer”. Film producers have also gravitated towards the band. In early 2013 the band met Mars Horodyski and Dan Abramovich, producers of the film “Ben’s At Home”. As fans of Freedom Or Death, they immediately saw a connection between the bands’ sound and their story and visuals, asking the band to score the music for the film.

With a strong and steady creative process, stopping is the last point on Freedom Or Death’s agenda. As long as the band’s ideals of their art come first and commerce taking a back seat hold true, they will continue to make the music they want to make for as long as they desire.

Contact: Faisel Durrani faisel@ovation-ent.com Phone: 310.909.3148

Credits: 

Directed by Mars Horodyski

Starring Dan Abramovici, Jess Embro, Craig Brown, Jim Annan, Rob Baker, David Reale, Inessa Frantowski, Kimberley-Sue Murray, Katie Bowes, and Schnitzel The Dog as Schnitzel.

Produced by Anneli Ekborn, Mars Horodyski, and Dan Abramovici

Written by Mars Horodyski and Dan Abramovici

Director Of Photography Walter Pacifico

Line Producer Sarah Hansen

Edited by Mike Reisacher

Music by Freedom Or Death