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Rohan Fernando named as producer with the NFB’s Quebec Atlantic Studio in Halifax.

PRESS RELEASE
12/07/2018

Rohan Fernando – Photo by Holly Crooks

July 12, 2018 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Nova Scotia filmmaker Rohan Fernando is the National Film Board of Canada’s newest producer, joining the NFB’s Quebec Atlantic Studio in Halifax, executive producer Annette Clarke has announced.

Born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Rohan is an award-winning documentary and fiction filmmaker whose roots at the NFB go back to his professional film debut in 2002, the autobiographical NFB/Triad Films co-production Cecil’s Journey, named Best Atlantic Short Film at the Atlantic Film Festival.

“Rohan brings enormous expertise in storytelling and creative producing to the studio. He has deep roots in the Atlantic filmmaking community and is strongly committed to stories that represent who we are as a nation. We’re thrilled to welcome him,” said Clarke, a veteran NFB producer.

After Cecil’s Journey, Rohan would go on to direct NFB documentaries on a wide range of topics, including Trudeau’s Other Children (2005), exploring the genesis and impact of Pierre Trudeau’s multiculturalism policy for culturally diverse Canadians like himself, followed by Blood and Water (2007), chronicling one man’s search for meaning after losing his family to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Premiering at Hot Docs, Rohan’s 2010 NFB feature doc The Chocolate Farmer took audiences inside a year in the life of a cacao farmer and his family in Belize.

Most recently, Rohan has had key creative roles in two pioneering, Halifax-produced NFB interactive experiences: Space School (2013) and the upcoming Ocean School. Also soon-to-be-released for Fernando is Becoming Labrador, an NFB documentary about a Filipino community taking root in Goose Bay, Labrador, which is co-directed with Justin Simms and Tamara Segura, in a collaboration with writer Michael Crummey.

Rohan burst onto the film scene straight out of film school in 1999 with Shelter, the pilot for a supernatural TV show for CTV, which he wrote and directed based on his own graphic-novel series, published by NBM Comics. He then wrote, directed and produced Fade to Black, a 2003 feature drama broadcast on IFC and Showcase. His next dramatic feature, Snow (2010), was the opening night film at the Reelworld Film Festival and won the best music award at the Atlantic Film Festival.

 

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    Founded in 1939, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is a one-of-a-kind producer, co-producer and distributor of distinctive, engaging, relevant and innovative documentary and animated films. As a talent incubator, it is one of the world’s leading creative centres. The NFB has enabled Canadians to tell and hear each other’s stories for over eight decades, and its films are a reliable and accessible educational resource. The NFB is also recognized around the world for its expertise in preservation and conservation, and for its rich and vibrant collection of works, which form a pillar of Canada’s cultural heritage. To date, the NFB has produced more than 14,000 works, 7,000 of which can be streamed free of charge at nfb.ca. The NFB and its productions and co-productions have earned over 7,000 awards, including 11 Oscars and an Honorary Academy Award for overall excellence in cinema.