John Kalangis
John Kalangis is a filmmaker, writer, director, interactive media producer and national broadcast executive. From May 2007, Kalangis was the Executive in Charge of Original Interactive Arts & Entertainment at CBC Television before joining marblemedia, a television and interactive content company, as creative director in spring 2009.
Career as a filmmaker
His first feature film, "Jack & Jill" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1998 and received a Genie nomination for Best Supporting Actress and Best Director for a debut film. It was a micro-budgeted film shot in 11 days and executive produced by Oscar nominee, writer and director Atom Egoyan.
His second feature, “Love is Work” won the American Express People’s Choice Award for Best Feature Film at the world premiere at the Whistler International Film Festival in 2005. In spring 2006, the film cast won a special jury prize in Toronto and was the inaugural film for the NFB and Canadian Academy of Cinema and Television’s Critic’s Choice screening series. Also that spring, multi-Oscar winner Paul Haggis presented the film at its U.S. premiere in Los Angeles.
The Globe and Mail said Love Is Work had "the raw power you find in John Cassavetes's like-minded expeditions" and the National Post called the film "Canada's best counterpart to Annie Hall."
Earlier in 2005, Kalangis directed a six-part exclusive online documentary about historic BBC series DOCTOR WHO for CBC interactive. Over 2 million viewers from around the world enjoyed the series in the first year.
In summer of 2006, Kalangis directed and wrote “The Mad”, an action-comedy horror feature film starring Billy Zane. The film was selected as the opening night Gala at the Canadian Film Festival in Toronto and was the cover feature of Gore Zone magazine, the U.K.’s premiere horror publication.
HorrorYearBook exclaimed that ‘in a STUNNING reversal of the norm, director Johnny Kalangis paid more attention to the script than he did to the gore. It’s packed with jokes, sight gags and witty banter’ and TwitchFilm.net’s Andrew Mack confessed, ‘I laughed really hard at a few moments in the film and I am usually immune to laughter. But the script is very funny.
INTERACTIVE – Writer, Director, Producer, Executive
From 2000 - 2007 Kalangis worked at CBC as a radio, television and interactive entertainment producer. There, he wrote, produced, directed and edited online and broadcast entertainment materials supporting A-list broadcasts like Opening Night, The Nature Of Things, Barney’s Version and The Rick Mercer Report, as well as making documentaries, music specials, and doing arts reportage.
He has produced and directed radio drama, worked on award-winning interactive advertising campaigns, consulted for online start-ups, performed keynote speeches on the convergence of interactive and conventional storytelling and production models and participated in round table discussions at the CFC, the Toronto International Film Festival, at new media think tanks and on television programs.
Starting in 2007, as Executive in Charge of Original Interactive Entertainment at CBC, Kalangis led a series of ground breaking original interactive transmedia entertainment projects through the development process with the national broadcaster. They explored a wide range of genres from comedy to teen drama, from science fiction to romance and multiple storytelling techniques and delivery methods.
In April 2008 and in March 2009, Kalangis led the Digital Development Labs in Vancouver. A product of partnerships between New Media BC, BC Film and CBC, the three-day interactive entertainment lab united independent producers with interactive media mentors to help take their projects from great story or audience experience concepts to fully interactive transmedia entertainment pitches.