COHORT 3 PARTICIPANT

Vanessa has worked in the film and television industry for 10 years as an actress appearing recently in Self Made, Chucky, Children Ruin Everything and Working Moms. However a few years ago, seeing the lack of stories being told about Black Canadians and across the Black diaspora, she felt the strong desire to create content that explored stories about the black experience and create more opportunities for artists of colour. A few years ago, Vanessa co- founded Madden & Mitchell Media Inc. with her husband, Anthony Mitchell and began her journey as a producer. In 2016, MMM co-produced their first project in association with EMG, a short film called Truth. This further ignited a passion within Vanessa to produce more impactful content for the screen. Three years ago, upon doing research on Black Canadian historical stories, she came across the story of civil rights activist and journalist, Carrie Best. It was there, the creation of That Lonesome Road became a passion project. With That Lonesome Road project, Vanessa was selected as a participant for the Reelworld Film Festival's Emerging 20 program in 2019 and the Banff-Netflix Diversity of Voices Program in 2020. That Lonesome Road is currently in the early development phase as a four-part TV mini series and will be co-produced with Jennifer Holness of Hungry Eyes Media (Subjects of Desire), directed by Sudz Sutherland (Ginny & Georgia) and written by Lawrence Hill (Book of Negros).