Janice Morris, Founder & Festival Director
My love of film is equaled only by my love of learners and learning, so KDocsFF is the perfect way for me to do what I truly love in every way. As the KDocsFF Festival Director, I am responsible for overseeing film curation/programming, sponsorships, funding/grants, partnerships, speaker development/curation, exhibitors development/curation, financial management, logistics, venue management, marketing/promotion, community partnerships, and community liaison. When not organizing the KDocsFF Annual Documentary Film Festival and other KDocsFF film events, I am incredibly fortunate and grateful to teach English literature, critical reading, critical writing, and critical thinking at KPU, a place I have called home since 2006. My other research interests include graphic novels, visual culture, film studies, media studies, and critical approaches to historicizing and theorizing “holocomics”—graphic novels and representations of the Holocaust. I am also an Advisory Board Member/Section Editor for Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film and Visual Narration, KPU's official film studies journal. I was recently honoured as the 2022 recipient of KPU’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Award, as well as a 2020 YWCA Women of Distinction Award nominee (Arts, Culture, & Design), and as the winner of the 2019 Allies of Muslim Women Award from Voices of Muslim Women. Outside of work, I am a huge Canucks fan (Go Canucks!) who enjoys travel, cycling, and binge-watching my favourite TV series (best ever? The Wire … and Breaking Bad). I am so proud of KDocsFF, now in its second decade! janice.morris@kpu.ca
Greg Chan, Community Outreach PROGRAM director
As a BIPOC member of the LGBTQ2S+ community and son of a political refugee, my lived experience has become an integral part of my teaching, scholarship, and activism at KPU, where I lead KDocsFF’s Community Outreach Program, Social Justice Lab, and KDocs Talks. I am proud that KDocsFF’s programming embodies intersectional social justice, centering anti-oppression, sustainability, human and animal rights, resistance, and diversity. I am also the founder and editor-in-chief of the KDocsFF-sponsored film studies journal, Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration, and my research interests include BIPOC/Asian representation in film, transtextuality, fandoms, and documentary activism – all frequent topics of my presentations at various conferences like the Popular Culture Association’s annual meeting. In the classroom, I have been teaching film studies courses in the English Department since 2012 and enjoy taking my students on field studies to the Rio Theatre; I also co-curated an English/Fine Arts ceramics exhibit on the Japanese Canadian internment that is now on permanent display at Historic Joy Kogawa House. Learning about privilege alongside students, colleagues, and community members—and how to break down our unearned advantages in the name of justice—continues to be my role as an educator/documentary activist. Proudly, I am the recipient of the Faculty of Arts Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Award for 2021. greg.chan@kpu.ca
Bogdan Bryja, VOLUNTEER
My passion for film began early in my childhood. I lived in a relatively small city, and movies – watching them, thinking about them, even vicariously living through them – was a way for me to transcend my geographic and socio-cultural boundaries. I have studied and worked in different countries, but now I am fully determined to stay put in our beautiful British Columbia . . . and be a part of the KDocsFF team for years to come. Apart from watching films, of course, and teaching undergraduate students at KPU, I enjoy hiking, kayaking, and camping. bogdan.bryja@kpu.ca
JENNIFER HARDWICK, VOLUNTEER
I’m a setter scholar and faculty member in the Department of English and the Policy Studies Program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, My teaching and research focus on the impact that stories (both told and untold) have on identity, power structures, communities, and nations. In particular, I’m interested in how stories can be used to speak back to injustice, build and uphold relationships, heal, and envision new ways of being. I’m excited to work with the KDocsFF team to share important stories through documentary film! jennifer.hardwick@kpu.ca
in MEMORIaM: james darby (1967-2018)
Originally from London, England, where he grew up watching the great films of the 70s and 80s, James was the indispensable behinds-the-scenes KDocsFF Researcher (and Janice’s much better half). His all-time favourite movie was Steven Spielberg’s feature-film debut, Duel, followed by the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. He was very proud of having watched every film on the IMDB Top 250, although that pales in comparison to his greatest achievement: keeping Janice sane, especially during festival time. We miss him so much.