Two writers and two directors have been selected for the 2022 Level Up Program in partnership between Access Reelworld, Citytv, Shaftesbury, and Pope Productions.

Now in its second year, the four-week mentoring initiative offers paid job shadowing opportunities to racialized equity-deserving communities, including Black, Indigenous, Asian and people of colour, with Citytv scripted hit series Hudson & Rex in Newfoundland.

The four participants who will get on-the-ground experience on set and in the writers’ room of the show, currently filming its fifth season, are: Reza Dahya (pictured left), a South Asian director from Toronto; Latonia Hartery (pictured second from left), an Indigenous writer, director and producer from Milltown, N.L.; Ryan Atimoyoo (pictured second from right), a Vancouver-based Indigenous screenwriter and filmmaker from Little Pine First Nation, Sask.; and Saleema Nawaz (pictured right), a South Asian writer based in Montreal.

This year’s participants were selected from over 100 candidates. Atimoyoo and Nawaz (Quebec) will enter the writers stream, while Dahya and Hartery take on the directors stream.

Dahya has been host and producer of OTA Live on FLOW 93.5 FM Radio in Toronto. He attended the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Lab and has film credits including the shorts Esha (2011), Five Dollars (2013) and Chameleon (2015). He secured Canadian distribution for his debut feature-length film, Boxcutter, through Game Theory Films, and aims to shoot in Toronto the summer of 2023.

Hartery is a documentary filmmaker who has written, directed , production-managed and line-produced for CBC’s Land and Sea. She has also directed longer-form TV documentaries, such as CBC’s Keeping Canada Alive, and written and directed several short films, including Sadie, Escape Routes and Wind Money. Hartery produced the 2016 film Crocuses (2016) and is currently producing her first feature.

Atimoyoo holds an MFA in screenwriting from the University of British Columbia and is a recent grad of the Pacific Screenwriting Program in B.C. He was recently a script coordinator for the Netflix original superhero crime-action series Grendel.

Nawaz’s most recent novel, Songs for the End of the World, was heralded by publications including the Globe & Mail, Quill & Quire and 49th Shelf. She is also the author of the novel Bone and Bread and the short-story collection Mother Superior.

A news release says one of last year’s participants, Playback 10 to Watch alum JJ Neepin, is returning to direct one episode of Hudson & Rex season five.