COHORT 5 PARTICIPANT

Nadine Pequeneza is an award-winning director-writer-producer and the founder of HitPlay Productions, one of Canada's leading independent production companies. HP focuses on character-driven films that offer unique access to stories about social and environmental justice. Over the past 20 years Pequeneza's directorial work has garnered 11 Canadian Screen Award nominations, including a win for Best Writing in a Documentary. Her recent directorial feature LAST OF THE RIGHT WHALES (2021) won Best Canadian Feature at the Planet in Focus International Film Festival and was #1 at the Canadian box office on opening weekend.

In 2021 Pequeneza began producing the work of other filmmakers, supporting emerging and veteran directors to bring their vision to the screen. The company has also expanded into scripted features and series, focusing on drama and thriller sub-genres. HP’s scripted slate is based on real events and stories that Pequeneza has adapted from her documentary filmography.

In 2023 Pequeneza wrote her first scripted feature 1047 DAYS, based on the life and death of Ashley Smith. The screenplay was a semifinalist for the Humanitas New Voices Fellowship 2023, and the adapted short was selected for the CFC/Netflix Calling Card Accelerator. Her second screenplay RARE EARTH was awarded the Sloan P. Fellowship, selected for the Stowe Story Lab and Athena Writers Lab 2024, and short-listed for the quarterfinals of The Writers Lab International and Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship. HP’s one-hour drama pilot, DESCENT, was born of Pequeneza’s years of documentary filmmaking in Haiti.