BEAUTIFUL - (IN PRODUCTION FOR CBC, 2024)Editorial Research / AP - Proximity Films & Ravenhead ProductionsA feature documentary that exposes the dark side of how the beauty industry and the ‘ideal standard of beauty’, has deeply impacted our lives, written, directed and produced by Phyllis Ellis (In Production for CBC, 2024)Writer: Phyllis EllisDirector: Phyllis EllisProducer: Phyllis Ellis, Howard FraibergPLAY IT LOUD - (IN PRODUCTION FOR TVO, 2023)Development AP | Production Coordinator - Ultramagnetic ProductionsA feature documentary that tells the remarkable story of how Jamaican music came to Canada as part of a social and cultural migration that had a seismic impact on Canada and helped transform this country into a modern nation and make it a mecca for Jamaican music.Director: Graeme MathiesonProducer: Andrew MungerExecutive Producer: Clement VirgoCATEGORY:WOMAN (TVO, 2022)Social/Web Producer | Communications - Proximity FilmsCategory:Woman focuses on four remarkable athletes, from the Global South, forced out of competition by these regulations, the devastation to their bodies, and their lives. Equally arresting is their passion for sport is further emboldened by their conviction to stand up for their human rights. Category: Woman is a ‘champions journey’ supported by remarkable advocates and experts who celebrate greatness in the face of oppression. Following her award-winning film Toxic Beauty, filmmaker and Olympian Phyllis Ellis exposes an industry controlled by men putting women’s lives at risk while the policing of women’s bodies in sport remains, in a more nefarious way, under the guise of fair play.Learn More - categorywomandoc.comDirector: Phyllis EllisWriter: Phyllis EllisDirector of Photography: Iris NgEditor: Eugene WeisComposer: Aaron Davis, tUkUProducers: Phyllis Ellis, Howard FraibergExecutive Producers: Howard Fraiberg, Cheryl Staurulakis

Founded 42 years ago, White Pine Pictures is a Toronto based film and television production company. Its productions have engaged audiences worldwide with compelling stories in documentary and dramatic form. White Pine’s work has been honoured with dozens of international awards, including two Emmys (plus two Emmy nominations), two Oscar shortlists, the Sundance Audience Award, multiple Canadian Screen Awards, Canadian Editors Awards, Director’s Guild of Canada Awards, several Gold and Silver Hugos, and the Sesterce d’Argent. We have become trusted suppliers to Canadian and international broadcasters and streaming services including CBC, Bell Media, TVO, Hulu, Starz, Super Channel, BBC, Channel4, PBS, Smithsonian, Love Nature, France 2, ZDF, ARTE, SVT, NHK, ABC, SBS and more.

Filmmaker Barri Cohen leads part detective story, part social history in UNLOVED - HURONIA'S FORGOTTEN CHILDREN as she uncovers the truth about Alfie and Louis, her two long-dead half-brothers. They were institutionalized at the Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia in the 1950s, with one brother unceremoniously buried in secret in an unmarked grave as a small child. Their lives were cut short, but their story stands as a microcosm of the immense tragedy of the Western World's 20th-century disastrous treatment of intellectually disabled children and youth. Through the interwoven narratives of a POV family story with critical institution survivors, a question preoccupies the film: how do we allow ourselves to dehumanize the most vulnerable people in our care?

The life, music, and activism of legendary Indigenous singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie are explored in this documentary that is as captivating as its subject, who smashed through barriers to become an inspiration to fans and fellow musicians alike.

Fifty years ago, all of Canada came together to watch one of the most intense, unforgettable and controversy-filled hockey series in history. ICE-BREAKER: The Legacy of the ‘72 Summit Series features fascinating characters and untold stories from the eight legendary games that pitted Canada against the Soviet Union in September 1972.

Wild Pacific Rescue is a dramatic and emotional wildlife series that takes viewers on an exciting adventure into the wild, mountain-ringed seas of the Pacific Northwest, and behind the scenes at the world-class Ocean Wise Marine Mammal Rescue Centre. We are embedded with world-renowned marine mammal veterinarian, “Dr. Marty” Haulena and the young, dedicated animal care specialists as they rescue, rehabilitate, and release some of the most fascinating animals on the planet. Dr. Marty leads a highly skilled and fiercely loyal team of veterinarians and vet technologists. Their mission is to head out into the wild to find and treat some of the most iconic and vulnerable creatures in the sea. They tend to sick, injured or distressed marine mammals and other aquatic species -- from pint-sized sea otter pups to 1500 pound sea lions, and everything in between. Their motto? “Every animal counts.” Dr. Marty’s team is like a family, bound together by their shared responsibility for the rescue and rehabilitation of wild animals, and for the ongoing care of thousands of creatures living at the Vancouver Aquarium. The stakes are high and the drama is real. Treating a giant California sea lion shot by a crossbow bolt, rescuing a lost and hypothermic sea turtle 2000 miles from its tropical home, rushing a critically ill sea otter into triage -- these are some of the typical challenges faced by the rescue team. The animals are wild and unpredictable, the weather and seas are constantly changing. The work is challenging, often dangerous, but always rewarding. Saving animals and keeping them wild, that’s the mission of the Ocean Wise Marine Mammal Rescue Centre.

In CitizenKid: Earth Comes First, four Canadian youth activists, Hannah Alper, Sophia Mathur, Charlene Rocha and Cooper Price set out to show how people can change the world no matter their age. They journey to Toronto, Ottawa, Washington and beyond, to engage with government leaders, fellow climate activists and to learn from an Indigenous Elder. Through images, words, performance and social media, these activists share their experiences with other young people, extending the conversation beyond the screen to spark real action in response to the global climate crisis.Part informational, part inspirational and part call-to-action, CitizenKid: Earth Comes First is a documentary that will inspire young people around the world to put Earth first.

Margaret Atwood has never been more relevant than she is today. Readers are turning to her work as they face the rise of authoritarian politics, rapidly evolving technologies, and the slow-motion disaster of climate change. Her poetry and books are about survival, but they are also survival tools themselves. The recent success of the television adaptation of her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, has made Atwood a household name. The launch of her sequel, The Testaments, has been international news. Millions follow Atwood’s early morning Tweets.Yet few know the private Margaret Atwood. Who is the woman behind these stories? How does she always seem to know what is to come? For a year our film crew had exclusive access to Atwood and her late partner Graeme Gibson, as they travelled to speaking engagements around the world. Margaret was enthusiastically welcomed by crowds of all ages.We accompanied Atwood to the set of The Handmaid’s Tale, where she met lead actor Elisabeth Moss and Ane Crabtree, costume designer of the blood-red robes worn by protesters around the world. The film also delves into Margaret Atwood’s “backstory”, growing up in the Canadian wilderness, her early days as a poet at Harvard where she met and married a classmate, later meeting her life-partner Graeme Gibson and writing The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood’s major works are explored and threaded through the film, revealing the personal and societal factors that inform her stories. Stories are shared by closest friends and family and, of course, directly by Atwood herself.We spent time with her, as she completed the final chapters of her much-anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale - a rare glimpse into the writer’s practice, as she wrote on planes, boats and on the road.

*Won 2 Canadian Screen Awards*- Best Direction, Phyllis Ellis- Best Writing, Phyllis Ellis*4 Canadian Screen Award Nominations*- Barbara Sears Award for Best Editorial Research- Best Direction- Best Writing- Best Original Music #1 streamed doc for 2020 on CBC.Gem. Feature documentary, TOXIC BEAUTY, premiered in the Big Ideas section of Hot Docs 2019, International Documentary Film Festival. Helmed by award-winning and multi-award nominee - writer, director PHYLLIS ELLIS. Chatelaine's top 10 influential women of 2020.

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band is a confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robbie Robertson’s young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music, The Band. The film is a moving story of Robertson’s personal journey, overcoming adversity and finding camaraderie alongside the four other men who would become brothers in music and who together made their mark on music history. Once Were Brothers blends rare archival footage, photography iconic songs and interviews with many of Robertson’s friends and collaborators including Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison Martin Scorsese, Peter Gabriel, Taj Mahal, Dominique Robertson, Ronnie Hawkins, and more. In a career spanning six decades, Robbie Robertson has continued to create as a songwriter, producer, performer, actor, author and film composer. A half-Mohawk, half-Jewish kid from Toronto, Robertson would travel from the dives of Yonge Street to the deep South as an ambitious 16-year-old on a musical mission. His raw talent would thrust him into the spotlight and put him at the centre of a cultural revolution, backing Bob Dylan on his notorious 1966 “electric” world tour and later, as a member of The Band, collaborating with Dylan on the ground-breaking Basement Tapes and inventing Americana with songs like “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” After 17 years, The Band called it quits with a lavish farewell concert on November 25th, 1976, at San Francisco’ Winterland Ballroom, immortalized in the seminal concert film, The Last Waltz, directed by Martin Scorsese – considered by many as the greatest rock and roll film of all time.