Guest Industry Expert — All Access 2021:

Vonnie Von Helmolt

Co-chair, Manitoba District Council, Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC)

Vonnie has been active in the Manitoba film and television industry since its current inception. From her Manitoba base, she has produced internationally released features, television movies, series, documentaries and specials. Her productions have garnered many film and television awards world-wide, including an International Emmy. Nominations include US Cable Ace Awards and a Banff Rockie.

Vonnie is the founding chair of Film Training Manitoba, and the Manitoba District Council of the Director's Guild of Canada. She is Chair Emerita of the board of the Winnipeg Arts Council. She is a national board member of the Documentary Organization of Canada.

Her theatrical documentary, TuTuMUCH, produced with Merit Motion Pictures, was awarded Best Documentary at two of the largest youth film festivals in the world, in China and Chicago, and screened widely across Canada, at the Cannes Film Festival with Telefilm’s Perspective Canada, and at film festivals worldwide. TuTuMUCH was released in the US in 2014.

With Merit Motion Pictures, she produced the three-part documentary miniseries Ballet Girls, and the documentary feature Ballet High. Both received Canadian Gemini nominations.

Her Emmy-winning dance film for the CBC, Dracula - Pages from a Virgin's Diary, directed by Guy Maddin, was a Canadian Top Ten Feature Film, on the Village Voice New York list of the top 10 films of the year, and won numerous Canadian and international film festival awards. IMDb rated Dracula as 8th best vampire film ever made - from a list of 70. (Not bad for a ballet movie).