Biographies
Jesse Bochner,
President
Jesse Bochner is a 25-year veteran of television and film production and is Ojibwa, originally from Manitoba. He has extensive experience in telling Indigenous stories from an Indigenous perspective.
His love of documentary film comes naturally. His mother, Sally Bochner, is an Oscar nominated executive producer with Canada’s National Film Board. Jesse’s start in the industry came at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) where he was part of the production crew on some of Canada’s most iconic television shows and mini-series including, Dieppe, Mr. Dress-up!, The Kids in the Hall, CBC Newsworld and The National.
After a move to Montreal in 2000, he focused his passions on post-production and graphic design, editing multiple seasons of, Finding Our Talk, a documentary series about the quest to save vanishing Indigenous languages. A regular contributor at Nutaaq-Mushkeg Productions he has worked on their documentaries, Mohawk Iron Workers and It Was a Woman. He also worked on other Indigenous projects including, Arm Nation and Watcher of the North.
With production partner Ari Cohen at Rotating Planet Productions, he edited the documentary series, The Uluit: Champions of the North, the kids animated show, Zam Zoom’s Animal Adventures, and the 5-part wildlife series, Animal Social Networks.
In addition to video editing, Jesse has taught documentary production in English and French.
Ari A. Cohen,
Vice-President
Ari A. Cohen is a Moroccan born award- winning Canadian filmmaker who has traveled the globe for over 20 years documenting wildlife and their profound connection to the ecosystem.
Through his extensive filmography he has built long-standing relationships with wildlife conservationists, researchers, cinematographers and Indigenous creators and directors. Previous collaborators include Zacharias Kunuk, Canadian Inuk Producer and Director of the acclaimed feature film, The Fast Runner and Cree director Paul Ricard.
His work includes wildlife documentaries for ARTE, CBC, and TV5, artist biographies for BRAVO, CBC, NHK, KNOWLEDGE and important social and political films and series for APTN, Documentary Channel, The Passionate Eye, Al Jazeera and other digital platforms of various types including new media and VR. Past films include Too Colourful for the League, The Instrument Bank, Being Osama, Falafelism, and The Uluit: Champions of the North, which was nominated as Best Documentary Series CSA.
His recent productions include; Aging in the Wild (2015-2017, in collaboration with ARTE France and Off The Fence), Stay-at-Home Animal Dads (2018, CBC The Nature of Things) and Animal Social Networks (2019-2020, ARTE and Off The Fence).
Ari was also Vice-President of Doc Quebec and, prior to working in film, served as one of the directors at the prominent Saidye Bronfman Arts Center.