With a background in contemporary dance and design, Montreal filmmaker Marlene Millar created her first award winning film, The Woman and the Sink, back in 1989. She received her BFA in Film Production from Concordia University, studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a Pew Dance Media Fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1999.

 

In 2001, Marlene and Philip Szporer co-founded production company Mouvement Perpétuel, directing and producing acclaimed arts documentaries and dance films. Their television broadcast partners have included Bravo!, APTN, the Documentary Channel and Bold. Their work is widely seen at international festivals and it has been featured at world events including the 2010 Cultural Olympics, the World Exhibition in Shanghai, a UNESCO tour of Latin America and more recently, a retrospective at Quartiers Danses in Montreal.

 

Recent projects include "Dafeena", a site specific dance film with choreographer Natasha Bakht, and "Lost Action: Trace", a stereoscopic (3D) live action/animated film with choreographer Crystal Pite, Theodore Ushev and produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

 

Marlene also directs videos for dancer Louise Lecavalier, choreographer Lynda Gaudreau and poet Ian Ferrier, to name a few. She has created film installations such as "Quarantaine 4 x 4" with Charmaine LeBlanc at the Société des arts technologiques (SAT) and "Sing, Juk Sing" with visual artist Mary Sui-Yee Wong at OBORO.

 

Mentoring emerging filmmakers through programs such as "Equité" at the National Film Board of Canada has been an important part of Marlene’s activities since 1994. She has taught and still teaches filmmaking workshops across Canada and abroad (Centre Imagine in Burkino Faso, Impulstanz in Vienna, University of Bowling Green in Ohio and Helsinki, Finland.) She is currently acting as a lead mentor for "Stories From Our Land" with the Nunavut Film Commission and the National Film Board of Canada.

 

Marlene also has an established career as a film editor. She sits on the Board of Directors at Main Film and has been a long standing member of the Documentary Organization of Canada.