Autodesk Media & Entertainment
Emerging filmmakers are creating incredible work with small budgets, tight timelines, and a lot of ingenuity. But what happens when the opportunity comes to go bigger? Your dream project gets greenlit, the scale grows, and suddenly you need the tools and workflows to match your ambition.
That’s what makes the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) such an exciting place to be. It’s where filmmakers come to share ambitious stories, take creative risks, and imagine what they could do next.
At Autodesk, we want to help you make that leap. Because when the opportunity comes to make the bigger film you’ve been dreaming about, the question is: do you have the technology to pull it off?
Read on to learn more about the special event we’re hosting at TIFF and how you can join us.
Special Event: When Ambition Outgrows the Workflow: Making the Leap to Bigger Stories
Monday, September 14 at 2:30pm | Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Stage 2
Historically, breaking into film and television often meant following a relatively established route through film schools, production companies, studios, or traditional industry networks. Access to professional tools, workflows, and distribution channels was limited, creating significant barriers for emerging creators.
Today, those barriers are rapidly evolving. Filmmakers are building audiences online, collaborating across global communities, and leveraging increasingly accessible technology—including new AI-powered tools—to visualize, experiment, iterate, and bring ambitious ideas to life.
The next generation of filmmakers isn’t waiting for permission. They’re experimenting, building audiences, refining their craft, and creating work on their own terms.
But as those ideas become bigger productions, an important question emerges: what tools, technologies, and workflows will help them make the transition from independent creator to professional filmmaker? What role can AI and other emerging technologies play?
This conversation brings together filmmakers and industry leaders to explore how the path into filmmaking is changing, what happens when creative ambition begins to outgrow the workflow, and what it takes to turn breakthrough ideas into larger, more complex productions.
The full recording will be made available on the Autodesk Media & Entertainment YouTube channel.
Get to know our guests
Dan Slater
Dan Slater is a Toronto-based producer and director, co-founder of Lava Creature, a high concept horror driven creative collective, and Slaterverse Pictures, a production company dedicated to bold, character-driven storytelling. With over 15 years in the film industry, Dan’s work has been recognized globally, earning multiple awards and international distribution for his feature films.
Ian Singh Bawa
Ian Singh Bawa is a South Asian filmmaker based in Winnipeg, Canada. His work explores family, masculinity, grief and vulnerability, often drawing from his own life and experiences. His short films have screened at festivals including TIFF, Slamdance, VIFF, Fantasia, Atlanta and Aspen Shortsfest, and have received multiple Vimeo Staff Picks.
His debut feature, Strong Son, grew out of his 2020 TIFF-selected short of the same name and was developed through Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch program. The film will have its World Premiere in the Discovery programme at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.
Ian is an alumnus of the TIFF Filmmaker Lab, TIFF Every Story Accelerator and the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Lab. He is currently developing his next feature projects while continuing to make films about complicated families, identity and the ways people struggle to take care of one another.
Matt Sivertson
Matt Sivertson joined Autodesk in 2021 as Chief Architect of Media and Entertainment to help realize Autodesk’s Flow vision for the industry. In addition to his background leading technology teams in the video game industry, Matt is also driven by his experience as an independent filmmaker, motivating him to help Autodesk’s customers to drive both efficiencies and creative possibilities.
Joana Vicente
Joana Vicente is an award-winning producer, executive, and Founder and CEO of Open Cities International, a production company and accelerator bringing together filmmakers, producers, and creative technologists to develop and produce ambitious independent films using new technologies and innovative production models.
Vicente has led some of North America’s most prestigious film organizations, having served as CEO of the Sundance Institute and as Executive Director and Co-Head of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Previously, she was Executive Director of IFP/The Gotham Film & Media Institute and the Made in NY Media Center.