Adrien Harpelle
Festival Director
Growing up in a family of filmmakers, I have been on film sets my whole life. I am a professional music producer, recording/mix engineer, composer, and filmmaker. I am a bilingual (English, French) artist who creates music and film with a focus on documentary, sound design and composition. I am a performing artist, I have toured across central and eastern Canada with acts as a guitarist, bassist, and singer.
Recently, I was the mentor, director, and composer for the 24min documentary Journey to our Homeland which premiered in September 2022. The film follows two elders and six youths traveling by canoe to the old village sites where their families lived from time immemorial. It is made with the support of Matawa First Nations, Shebafilms, and Four Rivers.
Alyssa Kusik
Administrative Intern
Alyssa Kusik is a multi-disciplinary artist from Thunder Bay, Ontario. A graduate of two certificate programs; Introduction to Pre-Animation and for Fine Arts from Algonquin College. She collaborates with local filmmakers, galleries, bands and fellow artists to make animations, documentary films and music videos. She is on the board of the Finnish Canadian Cultural Federation as Treasurer celebrating her Finnish and Ukrainian heritage.
Liz Nunn
Accounting Assistant
Liz is an Anthropology student at Lakehead University with a passion for art and community. Liz is a previous volunteer with Vox Popular, and this is her first year working for the festival as a summer student.
Marlon Legarde
Technical Assistant
Marlon Legarde is an indigenous multi-disciplinary artist from Thunder Bay, Ontario. Marlon is a musician and visual artist. He is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter in his bands Visual Past and Rider Waites. He has been performing since 2017.
Marlon designed and animated the Vox Popular Media Arts animated ad for the 2022 festival using Storyboard Pro and Toon Boom Harmony. Recently he has been learning how to animate with character rigs and animate frame by frame.
Ryan La Via
Chair
Ryan La Via is an award-winning filmmaker and a graduate of the Confederation College Film Production program in Thunder Bay, ON, Canada.
In 2014, Ryan became part of the Guinness Book of World Records under the category of “Most Screenwriters on a Theatrically Distributed Film.” His script was chosen as 1 of 50 winners of the ‘Create 50’ screenwriting competition based out of London, England. Nearly 3,000 scripts were entered with Ryan being the ONLY Canadian to win the international competition.
In 2020, Ryan completed his first feature length documentary titled CUP CONFIDENTIAL. It tells the tale of a local semi-pro hockey team and what they meant to Thunder Bay in the early 90’s. The film was extremely well received and was rented online in over 10 countries worldwide and in over 100 cities.
Marcus Agombar
Treasurer
Starting with Vox Popular in 2017 as the Festival Administrative Intern, in 2018 he took charge as Festival Director, After stepping down in 2020 Marcus joined the board as Treasurer. Marcus is an Honours Bachelor of Commerce graduate from Lakehead University with a major in Management Information Systems. He now is the Chief Operating Officer at the Thunder Bay Museum! Marcus is also one of the co-founders of BaySafe Harm Reduction which is a non-profit grassroots organization in Thunder Bay. Outside of work Marcus is a father of two children and 5 pets, and a DJ under the alias of ICOSA.
Martin King
Member
Martin King is a film Director and artist. A Broadcasting and Film graduate of Confederation College. He directed his first film “Wake Up” in 2017. Following the popular short film “God’s Park” in 2018. An active animator and visual artist, Martin also acted in community theater in the plays “Death of a Salesman” 2016 and “Mamma Mia” in 2019.
Dianne Brothers
Member
Dianne Brothers has now been involved in filmmaking in Thunder Bay for nearly a decade. Each of her films has been more ambitious than the last. She currently has a number of projects in development. She is a writer and producer on an animated film adaptation of Sheila Burnford’s children’s book Mr. Noah and the Second Flood, a book, published in 1973, that foresaw the impending climate disaster awaiting the world. She is also in post-production on a short comedy film focused on wedding toasts.
Kelly Saxberg
Festival Founder
Kelly Saxberg founded Bay Street Film Festival in 2005 to celebrate and screen local independent films.She is a film producer, director, editor and cinematographer who has worked on over 100 films. She works in English, French, Spanish and Finnish. She has also mentored dozens of emerging filmmakers in Thunder Bay through Flash Frame workshops and collaborative film projects since 2001.
Like many non-profits, Vox Popular could not thrive without its team of dedicated volunteers helping with events year-round. Thank you for your many contributions to our festival!
