2021 CSI Alumni Panel

Cinema Studies Institute alumni reveal how their education and experience got them to the creative careers they love. 

Philip Leers is the Project Manager for Digital Initiatives at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He completed an MA in Cinema Studies in 2009.

Chandler Levack is an award-winning writer, journalist and filmmaker. In 2017, her short film We Forgot to Break Up premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and SXSW. She was recently nominated for a Prism Prize for her co-direction of the music video for Jeremy Dutcher’s “Mehcinut”. She completed a Specialist in Cinema Studies in 2011.

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based writer. Her debut short story collection Frying Plantain won the 23rd annual Danuta Gleed Literary Award and won the 2020 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in literary fiction. Frying Plantain was shortlisted for the 2020 Toronto Book Awards, the 2020 Trillium Book Award and it was longlisted for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The collection is currently nominated for the 2021 White Pine Award and was shortlisted for Forest of Reading Evergreen Award presented by the Ontario Library Association. Zalika is also the winner of the 2019 Byblacks People’s Choice Awards for Best Author. She received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and an Hons. BA in English and Cinema Studies from the University of Toronto. She is currently working on a young-adult fantasy novel drawing inspiration from Jamaican folklore.