Some 70 industry professionals, from casting directors to broadcast executives to public funders, last week joined graduates of the Canadian Film Centre’s film program to catch a sneak peek of their promo reels — and they weren’t disappointed.

The Toronto screening showed shorts by the 19 recent grads of the five-month workshop for producers, directors, writers and editors.

The runaway favorite in the producers category was the powerfully comic BreakUp.Com, written and produced by Courtney Graham.

‘It’s about a woman who delivers breakups for women who want to get rid of the mama’s boys, douche bags and cheaters,’ said Graham with a laugh after the screening — while handing out creative business cards that read: ‘Congratulations! You’ve been dumped.’

In the writers category, S&M took on a comic twist in the Pink Floyd-meets-Apocalypse Now parody Madam Wow, written by Elaine Chang, with the title role cleverly interpreted by young thesp Ginger R. Busch.

Particularly notable cinematography by Duraid Munajim was the shining credit in Kalashnikov Sunrise, an ode to Afghanistan’s nightmare, and budding producer Anita K. Sharma created an engaging romantic clip in Patronato, which reminds that ‘passion has a cost’ and that ‘what we love breaks our hearts.’

The People Garden by director Nadia Litz also drew praise from the audience. Male lead Scott Yamamura delivered a subtle, yet thoroughly convincing portrayal of an unusual young man who cuts down the hanging dead in a ‘suicide forest.’

Stephanie Azam, head of English-language feature film productions at Telefilm Canada, said later she was ‘captivated’ by the short film.

‘I don’t get a lot of opportunity to meet emerging talent so I come here to spot new talent,’ Azam added.

Canwest exec Susan Alexander, who is also an advisor to producers in the program, noted that television executives attend the screenings because ‘these are the young people we will be working with on original Canadian programming. Many of the graduates have become valuable writers, producers, editors, directors and actors… so we want to keep an eye on them for future collaboration.’