Playback‘s New Establishment is an annual feature highlighting Canadian companies or individuals achieving great success mid-career. Inspired by our 5 to Watch nominations, these individuals are already “watched” and are making waves in the Canadian entertainment industry. Our fifth and final 2015 New Establishment profile looks at April Mullen of Wango Films. 

The love of film has always been the driver behind director and producer April Mullen’s career. After 15 years of acting and producing original IP with her producing partner Tim Doiron — including the first-ever stereoscopic 3D Canadian feature, 2012’s Dead Before Dawn — under their Toronto-based prodco Wango Films, Mullen is establishing herself as a go-to director-for-hire.

This fall, she’ll direct the next feature, Below Her Mouth, from one of Canada’s best-known producers, Robert Lantos, which started today in Toronto. “April is a powerhouse with a unique and compelling style,” says Lantos. “Her visual sense is stunningly bold which is why her films have sold worldwide. She’s a leader, the future belongs to her.”

Mullen and Doiron this year self-distributed their horror film 88 through their new distribution arm, Wango Releasing. The film opened theatrically to fourth place on Playback‘s Top 5 Canadian films in May, and is now on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Walmart, HMV and Rogers on Demand. Their next film, Farhope Tower, is the company’s first coproduction. The paranormal thriller, in which Mullen directs, stars and produces with Doiron, is being done with Toronto’s Breakthrough Entertainment (coincidentally led by another veteran Canadian entertainment industry exec, Ira Levy).

As Playback caught up with Mullen in August, she was fresh from directing her first stateside feature, Badsville from Phillm Productions. One of the film’s producers had seen a rough cut of 88 and was so impressed with Mullen’s work, he asked her to come down and interview for the gig, which she did, and quickly won.

Mullen sees the new spate of commissioned directing gigs as the next step in building Wango with Doiron, learning from others and creating an opportunity to change the model she and Doiron have developed together in their 15-year partnership.

“I think every new project that you do, you learn a lot about people, personalities and the filmmaking process as a whole. And we always bring it back home to Wango,” she says. “We’ve been approached by a lot of different options now as a company because we do what we do and Tim and I feel it’s important to stay true to our voices and…we feel very strongly about continuing with Wango, creating original IP and letting that grow and branding ourselves that way.”

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2015 edition of Playback and was updated with new information on Below Her Mouth.