Mayworks is excited to welcome our new Executive Director, Carolyn Combs
Carolyn began her new role as Mayworks Executive Director in November. With tremendous enthusiasm and passion for labour and the arts, she has hit the ground running with great plans for our 2021 Mayworks Festival.
Carolyn is an accomplished filmmaker and the former executive director of Women in Film and Television Vancouver (WIFTV) – an organization committed to gender parity and inclusion in the film and television industries. She oversaw eight years of advocacy success, exponential organizational growth, and consistent financial stability. Carolyn has experience working with labour organizations while at WIFTV.
The Vancouver International Women in Film Festival also grew during her leadership, and is increasingly recognized as an international centre of exhibition and discourse on contemporary women’s cinema. In collaboration with filmmaker Doreen Manuel (Secwepemc/ Ktunaxa First Nations) and Peggy Thompson (screenwriter/ producer) she founded the Tricksters and Writers screenwriting program for Indigenous women, a program she continues to lead. She holds a Masters Degree in Education with a specialization in curriculum studies from the University of Manitoba, as well as being a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Resident Director’s Program. Her most recent film, which she both directed and edited, is the fiction feature, Bella Ciao! (Whistler 2018) starring Carmen Aguirre, Tony Nardi, Taran Kootenhayoo and Alexandra Lainfiesta. The Georgia Straight’s Aidan Mack called the film, set at the intersection of the Latin, Italian and First Nations communities in East Vancouver, “a poem to the notion that art and resistance nourish each other.”
We know Carolyn’s experience and commitment to the arts and labour will provide stellar direction for this year’s festival.
While the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced Mayworks to cancel our 2020 Festival, we are eagerly anticipating our first ever virtual Mayworks Festival in 2021. We will keep you updated with our plans!
The Mayworks Board
Cynthia Roberts
Ryan Hayes
Ikenna Agu
Pamela Arancibia
Helen Kennedy
Emily Visser