Federico Hidalgo (Writer, Director)

Before making films, Federico Hidalgo worked as a performer, writer and director in theatre improv, political cabaret, and traditional drama. He studied film production and made several award-winning short films at Concordia University, where he later taught courses in film history. His films Lotería (documentary, 1997) and Gesture (1999) were shot in Mexico City with Toronto-based filmmaker Roberto Ariganello. A Silent Love is his first feature film.

Paulina Robles (Writer)

Paulina Robles studied communications at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores, in Monterrey, Mexico. Before moving to Canada, she worked as head of the Social Communications Department in the municipality of Uruapan, Mexico. A Silent Love is her first screenplay.

Pascal Maeder (Producer)

Head of ATOPIA, Pascal Maeder studied film production at Concordia University in the mid-eighties. In the nineties, along with the feature film Motel, which he produced and directed in 1993, Maeder has produced and designed six original plays with Dummies Theatre, a company that he co-founded in 1992. In 1999, he produced the futuristic film, Between the Moon and Montevideo, along with writer-director Attila Bertalan.

In 2000, he founded ATOPIA through which he produced the feature documentary, SPIT: Squeegee Punks In Traffic, directed by Daniel Cross and released for ten consecutive weeks in Montréal and throughout Canada. More recently, Maeder produced El Ring, presented at Montreal’s FCMM, Havana’s Film Festival and Toronto’s Hot Docs. Along with the launch of A Silent Love, Maeder is developing several new feature film projects.

François Dagenais (Director of Photography)

François Dagenais started his film career by directing a series of 23 short documentaries around the world for the CBC. Between 1995 and 1997, he earned an MFA from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles where he shot his first feature film, Mascara. Since 1999, he has photographed 7 features including Between the Moon and Montevideo (Camerimage Cinematography Festival 2000), One Eyed King with William Baldwin, Armand Assante and Chazz Palminteri, A Silent Love (Sundance 2004), Undying Love, a feature documentary on Holocaust survivors (Best Cinematography, CSC Award) and Cube Zero, the prequel to the cult movie Cube.

Gabriel Tsampalieros (Production Designer)

After studying architecture at the University of Montreal (1995) and obtaining a diploma in set design from the National Theatre School of Canada (1998), Gabriel Tsampalieros has designed stage plays for La Voix Humaine (1999), Electra (2000), Being at home with Claude (2000), Le rire de la mer (2001), Floes (2001) and L’Avare (TNM, 2001). He was also Art Director for the Television series Delirium (Télé-Québec) and for films such as Au fil de l’eau directed by Jeannine Gagné and Yellowknife directed by Rodrigue Jean. Gabriel Tsampalieros has received three Mask Award nominations for his work in theatre.

Robert Marcel Lepage (Composer)

Robert Lepage has made so many CDs, STRIPs, SCOREs, and HONKs, that you have to wonder if he has some secret power-breakfast. He gets up very early to compose music for TV series (Urgences, Belphégor) before stealing away to the pool to stretch out lengthways (he wouldn’t do it anywhere else). By 9 o’clock he is back in the studio with other musicians to create music for the stage, for dance (Lucie Grégoire’s Hatysa) and for documentaries (Werner Vokmer’s Roussil, Manon Barbeau’s Les Enfants du Refus global). In the afternoon, he watches full-length films for which he will record new music the next day (Bernard Émond’s 20h17 rue Darling, Rodrigue Jean’s Yellowknife). He sometimes gets together with colleagues later in the afternoon to improvise or to talk about the music they want to do or collaborate on. He even puts on the occasional show in which his compositions share the stage with his strange, original ideas. Don’t miss him on these occasions or else you’ll have to try the pool. (source: www.actuellecd.com)