RTA students celebrate a year of work in film and media productions
By Sarah Grishpul
The large crowd of RTA students waits for the TARA Award ceremony to begin in the Jane Mallett Theatre (Sarah Grishpul/CanCulture)
At the end of the semester, students and faculty members of Toronto Metropolitan University’s RTA program gathered in the Jane Mallett Theatre to celebrate the 46th annual TARA Awards—an event commemorating the media projects developed by RTA students throughout the school year.
The TARA Awards prides itself on being 100 per cent more student-run than the Oscars. Winning a TARA is a highly coveted opportunity for students in media production, sports media and new media to walk onto a stage to the sound of thunderous applause and earn that time in the spotlight.
However, unlike the Oscars, what sets this award show apart from the rest is that the TARAs recognized the work of student creatives across many fields and roles. You certainly wouldn’t see an award bequeathed to Best UX/UI Design or Best Interactive or Immersive Experience anywhere but here.
This year, the show took audience members back nearly two decades to the roaring twenties, inviting guests to dress up in 1920s formal wear, and centring the show around the history of the TARAs and the RTA program.
The show began with a riveting and delightful dance performance to the tune of La La Land’s “Another Day of Sun.” From then on we were introduced to our hosts for the night, first-year Olivia Presti and fourth-year Chelsi Campbell, who arrived on stage utterly lost and confused.
Co-hosts Olivia Presti (left) and Chelsi Campbell (right) appear dazed and confused on stage in stunning formal wear (Sarah Grishpul/CanCulture)
As it turned out, the hosts had been transported to the 1920s through a time portal in the Catalyst! Despite this timely predicament, the two insisted the show must go on, and they guided the crowd through the illustrious upbringing of the beloved RTA program.
Both hosts and each presenter delighted the audience with cracks about TMU, inside jokes carefully crafted for the average RTA student and funny bits aimed at several beloved faculty members.
Co-hosts Olivia Presti and Chelsi Campbell read from an old yearbook while dated images of RTA professors grace the screen behind them (Sarah Grishpul/CanCulture)
For those who couldn’t attend the ceremony, here are some of the highlights from this year’s TARA Awards:
Best in Audio
The TARAs aren’t just for up-and-coming filmmakers but for budding audio professionals too. Many podcasts, radio shows and post-production projects in sound design were nominated this year.
The Best Podcast or Radio Show went to Mix 82.7 FM, a radio show produced by Helen Chen, Sofia Shahbazzadeh, Aryaan Kanji, William Turgeon, Alisa Badr and Jessica Scoplliti in their Live Radio Broadcasting class.
“Group projects usually suck, but not with these guys,” Chen said about her team. “It's been such a pleasure to be working with you”
The duo behind Voices Unearthed, Noah Bicknell and Rami Huijbregts-Aoudeh, also won an award for Best SpiritLive Show. For those unfamiliar, SpiritLive is a web-streaming broadcast station produced and run by RTA students.
“We've been doing this for two years now with different shows on SpiritLive, just testing out what works, and this is the one,” said Bicknell, who proceeded to thank their guests, families, friends and respective girlfriends. Huijbregts-Aoudeh chimed in with a resounding “Free Palestine” before the two left the stage.
Best First Year Audio Project was awarded to two first-year students in sports media for Behind the Unseen and media production for The Girly Pop Podcast. Both Sibeesh Ponnudurai and Mustafa Cowan were absent from the ceremony so the hosts accepted the awards on their behalf.
As for Best Music Composition, the winner was Elisa La Moglie for her iteration of “Lucy’s Theme.”
“This is really crazy,” she said. “[Music] is something I haven't got the chance to do before.”
The film Swine, a modern retelling of Circe, took home both awards for Best Audio Post Production and Best Cinematography. Co-creators Megan Summers Werle and Erin Cayer and producer Hannah Hormilada thanked their VFX artists, fellow nominees and the awards committee for recognizing their hard work.
“We spent countless hours going through the audio on the timeline,” said Summers Werle. “We're glad that it all paid off.”
Best in Acting
While the TARAs are mostly about celebrating technical achievements, the award for Best Performance in a Scripted Visual Project is their way of recognizing the best acting performance in the program.
Leading man of Cowboy 46, Emiliano Gonzalez Carranza walked across the stage in a large cowboy hat to accept the award for his role as Rex McGee.
“I got rejected from the performance acting program twice in a row. I came from Mexico a while ago, and just to put a very long story in a nice shell, I haven’t been able to pursue acting professionally for a long time,” they said. “And this role and this set and everybody who worked on the movie has really made this an amazing experience and I’m very grateful to you all.”
Best in Writing
Cowboy 46 also roped in a second award for Best Dramatic Writing. Partners Samantha Audrey and Nicolas Cannito accepted the award together for their work on the script.
“It’s one thing being a writer and writing a bunch of stuff, and it’s another writing something and seeing people actually make it,” said Audrey.
Best Specialty Writing went to Tatem Mackey for Christopher Carnello’s Ex-Girlfriend.
“I want to thank and apologize to all my family and friends for hearing me talk about this all the time,” she said. “Writing is my favourite thing to do, so this is crazy.”
Best in Art and Design Projects
The award for Best Installation Art or Sculpture went to fourth-year new media student Madeline Gillis for her project “You Will Stay Seated ‘Til We’re All Done.” In her speech, Gillis thanked the Makerspace staff, “who have seen me cry on way too many occasions,” and her therapist to whom this interactive piece was inspired.
Best Interactive or Immersive Experience went to Angelina Almanza’s new media thesis project “Resonance,” which serves to showcase how internal biases are imposed upon technology and sound-based experiences.
“I’m speechless right now,” she said. “Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be here.”
Best Fabrication and Best Electronic Project both went to “Nerves” and were accepted by a guest on behalf of the creators, Raven Zhang Liu and Audrey Abergel-Preston.
Inkway Galaxy: Takoyu Rescue, which you may have stopped by to play outside the Catalyst this year, won Best Video Game Project. Isabella Greco along with her team thanked their RTA828 class and Professor Kristopher Alexander for his guidance. Greco even shouted out their programmer and lead project manager, Maeve Fitzgerald, for being one of the main creators of the Community Arcade Table that helped introduce gaming projects to other students.
As for Best UX/UI Design, Olivia Majcher and Ailey Yamamoto were onstage to accept the award for their project “Wor(l)d Map.” Majcher dedicated the win to their friendship, to which the audience erupted in a mixture of awws and cheers.
Best in TV Show or Broadcast
Since fourth-year sports media production student Julian Quintero was up in the sound booth working during the show, a sock puppet was sent in his place to accept the award for Best On-Air Host in Sports. (No, I’m not kidding.)
“To the over 50 people who were on staff for the two days, damn those days were long, but thank you guys so much for it,” said Quintero about the Campus Carball Club production team. “I would not be here without you guys and everybody who supported me.”
While The G.O.D. may not have won the 48-hour film challenge earlier this year, the team behind this short film had the ultimate comeback of claiming the Best MET-TV Show award at the TARAs.
Group members Maya Rikhi, Molly Greenblatt and Natalie Turcotte thanked everyone who came to help them out during those two days of production. They reminisced about working on the film until five in the morning, inside the Victoria Building of all places.
Best Live Sports Show went to Aaliyah Edwards Homecoming: UConn vs TMU, who were very humble in recognizing the work their fellow nominees put into putting on a live sports broadcast.
The award for Best On-Air Host went to the current co-host of the ceremony, Chelsi Campbell, for her work on The Slumber Party, a weekly talk show where women and non-binary people can tune in to listen or discuss safe sex and pleasure.
“I want to say thank you to my team for creating a space where I was able to be myself on their show,” she said, “Thank you for always encouraging me.”
The Starving Artist is another TARA award-winning docuseries where host and director, Aryaan Kanji interviews local Toronto creatives while sharing a dish from the guest’s cultural background. Kanji accepted the award of Best Live Factual, Entertainment, or Lifestyle Show, shouting out the efforts of his fellow nominees and the work of everyone else in the program.
“It’s really not easy to wake up every day and choose to be creative and pursue that passion with everything in you,” he said. “And The Starving Artist is my way of bringing the world stories about local artists, and there’s no better way to do that than bonding over your culture, your identity, the food that you grew up eating.”
Best in Film
When it comes to creating short films, the nominees for Best Animation were described as “the best, the brightest and the least mentally okay.”
Cassie Demelo took home that title as well as the award for her film Lobster Boat. Demelo thanked her animators who she credited as the reason Lobster Boat was nominated.
“Animation is so hard and I have so much appreciation for it,” she said.
Several first-year students even claimed a prize for Best First-Year Video Project. Among the winners were freshmen media production students, Bekah Kiiffner, Chelsea Rodriguez and Quentin Chen, who took home the award for their film Detective Cantaloupe.
“We're so grateful to win this award and we look forward to being in every TARAs, whether we're nominated or not,” said an ecstatic Chen.
First-year new media students Anson Aswat and Emerson Gardner accepted the award for their group project, Call Moment. Gardner thanked Aswat and their two absent teammates, Aimee Yan and Mohamed Bangura, for their efforts on the project.
“Special thank you to my sister who made it even possible to do this assignment,” he continued. “And yeah, give it up for the other nominees!”
Whereas Best First-Year Digital Media Project went to Michael El-Hashwa’s “‘Joyland’ Book Trailer” and Elias Drakos’ “The Dragon’s Egg”
“I just want to say enjoy your time, cause first-year is over for me and I'm going to miss this so much over the summer,” Drakos said.
Second-year sports media students Eoghan Drumm, Tiffany Lau and Jazmin Gaura’s film Bold on Ice won the award for Best Visual Feature.
“This feature was a pleasure to make with these two ladies,” said Drumm. “A lot of hard work and effort went into it and knowing that this is the final result, it’s really special and it’s an honour to win this award.”
Drumm went on to thank their fellow nominees, his roommate, their professor Jeffrey Mether for his guidance and the TMU Bold Women’s Hockey Team, specifically Ahalya Julian-Mederios and Gabrielle Gareau, for taking the time to share their stories.
Best Short Film (Intermediate) went to Morgan Eastwood’s Darkroom, who brought along her “emotional support sound recordist” Evie Bhasin onstage to accept the award.
“This was such a pleasure to make with some good friends,” said Eastwood.
Towards the end of the night, Rami Huijbregts-Aoudeh returned to the stage once more to accept the Best Documentary award for his film Kuffiyeh. This five-minute documentary dives into the cultural significance and symbolism of the Palestinian Kuffiyeh.
“Thank you most importantly to my advisor and my mom for teaching me how to use my voice as a Palestinian and for being by my side, even in the midst of all the institutional backlash I faced trying to put this together,” he said.
Finally, the TARA Award for Best Senior Film (as well as Best Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Project) went to Osbor. The short film follows a young Egyptian-Canadian woman as she tries to navigate the ups and downs of life while coping with her grandmother’s Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Director and creator, Dana Rocca, was emotional while thanking the entire Osbor team, her friends who were cheering loudly in the audience, as well as their fellow RTA students for motivating her to do better every day.
“I saw all of the work that everyone put into their projects, they're all amazing,” Rocca said. “You all are incredibly talented, truly.”
She closed off her speech expressing her desire to see more stories like this on screen, and that she was so happy to have been able to bring this tale into fruition for her practicum project.
An excitable crowd of students, professors and alumni mingle outside the auditorium after the show (Sarah Grishpul/CanCulture_
