The Filmmakers

Ric Beairsto, Executive Producer
Ric is an award-winning writer/director/producer who, since 1980, has produced a string of successful television documentary one-offs and series for all of Canada’s major broadcasters, including Stand-up Samurais, Superkids, and Code Green Canada for CBC. Dark Pines, a docudrama about the mysterious death of the legendary painter Tom Thompson was done for Bravo!; A Life of Independence, Somewhere Between and Walking in Pain, shot at the Round Lake Aboriginal Treatment Centre, were produced for Canwest Global. Ric’s credits also extend to dramatic television and include Beachcombers, Close to Home, Madison and most recently the third season of Mixed Blessings, a half-hour dramedy series for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. As a part-time instructor in screenwriting at the Vancouver Film School, The Interior Film & Television Centre, Trinity Western University and Langara College, he has actively edited more than 1500 short screenplays. Ric is the author of The Tyranny of Story: Audience Expectations and the Short Screenplay, a book about story form in general, and short screenplay form in particular, which has been used in more than a dozen North American film schools, including UCLA and the American Film Institute.

Les Merson, Producer/Director
Les is a graduate of Langara College’s Documentary Film Production program who has worked as a Marketing and Public Relations consultant for the past 15 years and is the Producer/Director of the award-winning documentary, Something To Eat, A Place To Sleep & Someone Who Gives A Damn.  With a background in writing, editing, and graphic design, Les trained as a student journalist and member of the Canadian University Press at BCIT’s student newspaper, The Link. Prior to that he was the managing editor of publications for the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University. Publications at SFU included the critically-acclaimed Prison Journal, the award-winning Readings in Critical Thought & Cultural Literacy, and Liberation Theology & Sociopolitical Transformation. He has written and produced several television commercials, one which was nominated for a Television Bureau of Canada Retail Commercial Award. The songwriting/band competition he conceptualized, coordinated and produced was a finalist for the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) prestigious Gold Ribbon Award for promotion of Canadian talent in 2005. Les is currently pursuing his Masters in Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Gloria Wilson, Co-Producer
Gloria is from the Bella Bella, a small village on BC’s remote western coastline, but she spent five years homeless and drug addicted in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. She met Les Merson in 2008 during the production of Something To Eat, A Place To Sleep & Someone Who Gives A Damn, and became one of the participants. She now has her own home, has reconnected with her family, and is undergoing a methadone treatment program. She has assumed the role of Co-Producer on Street Sisters out of a professed desire to provide her street sisters with a similar opportunity to the one she had, in order to help them find the better life she has.

Ken Villeneuve, Director of Photography
Born and raised in Ottawa, Ken learned his craft at the Ontario College of Art and Ryerson University. A freelance photographer since 1980 specializing in advertising, corporate, editorial, and annual reports, his clients have included Abitibi, Armstrong Flooring, Beta Brands, Biovail, Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, Fuji Film, Imperial Oil, Molson Breweries, Resource World Magazine, Shared Vision Magazine, Stenberg College and Tim Hortons. He considers himself fortunate to be able to donate his time, expertise and photographs to valuable non-profits like Life Line Society, FACE, and the Alzheimer Society. Amongst other awards, Ken won the prestigious Sovereign Award for Outstanding Photograph in 1995. He is a member of C.A.P.I.C., P.P.A.B.C., P.P.O.C., V.A.P.A., C.A.P.A.

Rafi Spivak, Senior Editor and Story Consultant
Rafi came to Canada in 2000 via Israel, where his academic background was in mathematics and computer science, prior to beginning film studies in Tel-Aviv. Following his arrival in Vancouver, Rafi completed the Vancouver Film School program, where he discovered a passion for editing and documentary. He began his professional career as an assistant editor, and today is an award-winning editor with over 10 years experience editing documentaries, lifestyle and drama. His credits include more than 20 hours of television programming, including Raised To Be Heroes for the National Film Board and CBC’s The Passionate Eye, Dark Pines for Bravo!, and most recently Bruce Sweeney’s latest theatrical feature Excited. For the past seven years Rafi has been teaching ?lm at UBC, Langara College, Emily Carr University, and Simon Fraser University.

Beata Stolarska, "A" Camera, Assistant Editor
Beata Stolarska is a European-educated art director and commercial illustrator with a Masters of Fine Arts. Since her practicum at Poland’s Academy award-winning SeMaFor Film Studio, her first love has been motion graphics and film.

Captain Michael F. Harris, Director of Fundraising & Public Relations
Michael is a 56 year old Gitxsan Native who grew up in welfare homes and experienced all the abuses levelled at those attending Residential Schools. Michael is being taught to be a Spiritual Elder and practices Native Spirituality with many past and current Downtown Eastside Residents. His past and present community volunteering is lengthy and involved, to say the least. He recently participated in "The Walk For Justice," from Vancouver to Prince Rupert along the Highway Of Tears in support of murdered and missing aboriginal women. Michael’s employment success on the West Coast tugboats offers hope to all First Nations.

Carrie Osborne, Production Coordinator
Carrie is a member of the Norway House Cree Nation Band of Northern Manitoba.  She knows many women in situations similar to the Street Sisters and hopes that this series will inspire them and others to make changes in their own lives. Carrie says that she could have very easily become one of the Street Sisters if it were not for her passion for theatre and film. A professional actress, Carrie says that "Theatre gave me something to look forward to and focus on; films opened my eyes to what is out there in the world. Everything is about the choices you make."

Patricia Massy, Fundraising Coordinator & LifeSkills Coach
Patricia is a 27-year-old aboriginal who has worked with aboriginal youth at risk as a youth counsellor, and volunteered at a women's aboriginal transition house for victims of violence. She has her Life Skills diploma and gained work experience at Servants Anonymous Society in Surrey, BC, a society that provides secure housing and life skills programs to sexually exploited females. She is currently the Youth Services Officer at Service Canada in Abbotsford and is pursuing an Associates degree in Media and Communications and a BA in English at the University of the Fraser Valley.