INGRID VENINGER holds a MFA from York University and is a tenured faculty member of AMPD (School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design), in the department of Cinema and Media Arts.
Born in Bratislava and raised in Canada, Ingrid formed pUNK Films Inc. with a “nothing is impossible” manifesto. Since 2003, she has produced fifteen (15) feature films with premieres at TIFF, Rotterdam, Locarno, Slamdance, Whistler, Rome, Hot Docs, Karlovy Vary and MoMA in New York. With retrospectives of her work in Ottawa at the Canadian Film Institute and in Santiago, Chile at FEMCine. Ingrid received the WIFTS International Visionary Award, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists EDA Award for “Best Director” and the Jay Scott Prize awarded by the Toronto Film Critics Association. A member of the Directors Guild of Canada and participant in the inaugural TIFF Studio, Berlinale Talents, and Rotterdam Producer’s Lab, Ingrid has been a mentor at the Canadian Film Centre and Screenwriter-in-Residence at the University of Toronto.
An advocate for gender parity, Ingrid initiated the pUNK Films Femmes Lab in 2014 to foster narrative feature films written and directed by Canadian women, sponsored by Academy Award winner Melissa Leo. In July 2020, Ingrid took the Producer’s Pledge to “acknowledge & dismantle systemic racism in Canadian film & television.” pUNK FILMS www.punkfilms.ca
FILMOGRAPHY:
2024 – crocodile eyes, 77 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director-not-Credited
2022 – IF YOU WERE ME, 13 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2021 – ONE(NINE), 83 minutes – Executive Producer/Co-Director
2021 – WISH, 11 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2019 – EL MUNDO O NADA (THE WORLD OR NOTHING), 84 minutes – Producer/Director
2017 – THE OTHER SIDE OF PORCUPINE LAKE, 84 minutes – Producer
2017 – PORCUPINE LAKE, 85 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2015 – HE HATED PIGEONS, 80 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2013 – THE ANIMAL PROJECT, 90 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2012 – THE END OF TIME, 114 minutes – Producer
2011 – i am a good person/i am a bad person, 82 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2010 – MODRA, 80 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2008 – ONLY, 75 minutes – Co-Producer/Writer/Director with Simon Reynolds
2008 – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY, 92 minutes – Producer/Co-Writer with Charles Officer
2006 – EVERYTHING IS LOVE & FEAR, 8 minutes – Producer/Co-Writer/Co-Director with Charles Officer
2005 – THE LIMB SALESMAN, 80 minutes – Producer/Co-Writer with Anais Granofsky
2004 – URDA/BONE, 5 minutes – Producer/Co-Director with Charles Officer
2003 – GAMBLING, GODS & LSD, 180 minutes – Producer
2002 – THE BUNNY PROJECT, 2 minutes – Producer/Writer/Director
2001 – THREE SISTERS ON MOON LAKE, 19 minutes – Producer
1999 – SO BEAUTIFUL, 9 minutes – Producer
1998 – LEDA & THE SWAN, 70 minutes – Producer
1997 – PICTURE OF LIGHT, 83 minutes – Line Producer
1992 – STANDARDS, 48 minutes – Co-Producer with Jeremy Podeswa
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Ingrid Veninger is fervently determined to walk her path. And she has tread all the major paths in the film industry, working as an actor, writer, director, producer, and professor. You may have spotted Ingrid’s characteristic dreadlocked bun on the red carpet at TIFF, alongside daughter and frequent collaborator Hallie Switzer. Or perhaps you spotted her as early as the 1990s on La Femme Nikita series. Other well-known projects include Only, Modra, i am a good person/i am bad person, The Animal Project, He Hated Pigeons and Porcupine Lake. Her newest feature film is El Mundo o Nada (The World or Nothing), a first foray into documentary in which Ingrid travels to Spain and follows twin Cuban brothers seeking fame.
I first met Ingrid via Skype nearly seven years ago. I was a baby filmmaker from the States, scanning the skies for people who were making interesting work and didn’t seem like assholes. I breathlessly asked her questions, and she overflowed with encouragement and advice: “You don’t have to wait for permission from anyone to do your art.” Since then, I’ve followed Ingrid’s creative beacon closely and been lucky enough to become friends.
Many people say that each artist stands on the shoulders of giants. But Ingrid doesn’t stand on anyone’s shoulders without offering a hand up. She has a fundamental commitment to empowering other women storytellers. Upon receiving the Jay Scott prize of $5000 in 2011, Ingrid put the money towards empowering Canadian storytellers and launched Toronto’s “1KWave”. Then she did it again while winning the EDA Award at the Whistler Film Festival in 2014, bidding others in the room to invest in six new screenplays by six Canadian women. Melissa Leo stepped up and six original scripts were nurtured through Ingrid’s pUNK FIlms FEMMES LAB. As an inaugural participant at Hedgebrook’s Screenwriters Lab on Whidbey Island, she began work on her sixth feature, Porcupine Lake, a coming-of-age relationship between two girls set in Ontario’s north.
But Ingrid also works outside the binary, collaborating and cross-fertilizing to create stories and narrative structures that have never been seen before. Born in Slovakia, and trained as a dancer in childhood, Ingrid has a unique method for making meaning and telling visual stories. The most interesting thing about Ingrid’s work is how unpredictable it is, and yet authentic. Ingrid is deeply interested in aligning her creative process with the stories she tells. She has been called the “DIY queen of Canadian filmmaking,” the Canuck version of Greta Gerwig and mumblecore royalty. To step into Ingrid’s world is an invitation to chaos. But it’s the kind of chaos that somehow makes you feel right again, more human. This is the kind of artist we need in the world. We need artists who understand that process is intimately connected to product. We need more curiosity, more generosity, more audacity, more originality. And we can trust Ingrid to show us the way.
-Bio written by Bonnie Stinson/2015
