Writers Guild of Canada announces first participants of The Cohort

Kristina Fithern-Stiele (Calgary, Alberta): 

Kristina is a writer and filmmaker working in Calgary, Alberta. She has written, directed, and produced several short films, exploring her Tlingit heritage and queer identity through her art. In 2021, Kristina's horror anthology series, In the Woods, was developed with Blink49 Studios. Kristina shot her short film, Mother of All Creation, in 2025, which served as proof of concept for her feature film of the same name. The feature script was written and further developed in imagineNATIVE’s 2025/26 Feature Writing Lab. The film follows a woman pregnant with a universe as she tries to get an abortion.

Project title: Mother of All Creation
Format: Feature film
Logline: Mother of All Creation is an absurdist horror about a young woman who becomes pregnant with a universe and is desperate to get an abortion.
 

Amir Kahnamouee (Toronto, Ontario): 

Amir is an Iranian-Canadian writer and actor based in Toronto. His feature script, Port of Call, was a finalist in the Canadian Film Festival Script Contest and received the 2018 Daryl Duke Prize. He later participated in the Whistler Film Festival Screenwriting Lab, where he developed a script that went on to win the Writers Guild of Canada Jim Burt Prize. His feature film, Please After You, received Harold Greenberg Development and Canada Media Fund production funding and had its world premiere at the 2024 Whistler Film Festival, where it competed for the Borsos Prize. Amir holds an MFA in Film from York University.

Project title: Mount Royal
Format: Half-hour dramedy
Logline: Set in modern day Montreal, MOUNT-ROYAL is a half-hour comedy-drama about an Iranian-Canadian new father grappling with postpartum depression as he struggles to become a different kind of man than the one who raised him.
 

Celeste Koon (Toronto, Ontario): 

Celeste is a mixed-race WGC and CSA nominated writer with a focus on children’s media and animation. She is the creator of tween animated series Armadillo Avalanche (Blue Ant Media), and co-creator of stop-motion preschool series Bumpadoo! (Turtlebox Productions, TVOKids). She’s written for numerous Canadian and international broadcasters and production companies, been a part of many career development labs, and is working on her first graphic novel for Annick Press. Celeste’s script for The Cohort is her first venture into writing one-hour drama. Celeste also has a rabbit, a unicycle, and no sense of direction – resulting in many exciting exploits!

Project title: The Secret Society of Lost and Stolen Artifacts
Format: One-hour drama
Logline: Naomi – the adopted Chinese daughter of a high-ranking museum director, Ngozi – a Nigerian art professor, Elijah – a Cree hacker, and Simon – a naive PhD student wanting to ‘do better’, are part of The Society of Lost and Stolen Artifacts. Together they seek to repatriate items to their rightful owners and communities by whatever means necessary.
 

Gorrman Lee (Vancouver, British Columbia): 

Gorrman is a Chinese-Canadian screenwriter whose credits include: CBC and CW’s Wild Cards; Prime Video’s The Lake; Netflix’s The Imperfects, and The Order; and Syfy’s Van Helsing. His feature film, Golden Delicious, screened at 61 film festivals and had its theatrical premiere in 2023. He is a fellow of the 2022 Warner Bros Discovery X Canadian Academy Writer’s Program, the 2021 BIPOC TV & Film Showrunner Training Bootcamp, and the 2014 WGC and Bell Media’s Diverse Screenwriters Program. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, and a BFA in Filmmaking from SFU.

Project title: Bad Company
Format: One-hour drama
Logline: A vampire spy and a werewolf soldier, ancestral enemies enslaved by a secret CIA division that polices the supernatural underworld, are forced to pose as a married human couple inside a billionaire’s corporate utopia and uncover a conspiracy that threatens to ignite an inter-species war.

Berend McKenzie (Toronto, Ontario): 

Berend (he/she/they interchangeably) is a Toronto-based, award-winning playwright, screenwriter, actor and published author. A recent graduate of the CFC’s 2025 Norman Jewison Film Program, they are also a 2021 inductee in the Warner Bros. Discovery X Global Access Writers’ Academy, the 2024 Emerging 20 Mentorship Program, the 2024 Netflix Banff Diversity of Voices Initiative, and a 2024 recipient of the BSO Development Fund. Berend’s full-length plays include, the outrageous, award-winning queer puppet show for adults, Get Off the Cross Mary! And their groundbreaking, one-person show, NGGRFG (would you say the name of this play?).

Project title: Little Things That Fly
Format: Feature film
Logline: Determined to fly away from his abusive home, a lonely foster child befriends the Elvis-obsessed lady across the street and hatches a plan to live with her forever.
 

Reem Morsi (Toronto, Ontario): 

Reem is an Egyptian-Canadian writer-director and former UN human rights officer. A graduate of the London Film School, she wrote and produced the Telefilm Talent to Watch feature, Banned, and has since expanded into television, directing episodes of Virgins! for CBC Gem. Her feature screenplay, Bootleg, was selected for Cannes’ L’Atelier, Berlinale Script Station, TorinoFilmLab’s ComedyLab and Realness, and received the SFFILM Rainin Grant and Telefilm New Voices Award. She is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre, Women in the Director’s Chair, the CFC/Netflix Accelerator and the Warner Bros./Canadian Academy Directors Program, with series projects developed and pitched through international labs and markets, including Authentica and Series Mania.

Project title: Sweet & Sore
Format: Half-hour dramedy
Logline: An ambitious Egyptian immigrant leads a double life as a traditional waxing lady and a glamorous image consultant to break into Toronto's wealthy Arab community. But when she falls for the surgeon she's supposed to help marry off, her carefully constructed fantasy begins to unravel.