Citylife

The City Life Film Project was conceived by Calum deHartog, a city cop with a passion for filmmaking.

Calum reached out to Gavin Sheppard (co-founder of The Remix Project) to forge an innovative partnership that uses arts and culture to create an honest dialogue between at-risk youth and police. Then, Calum approached acclaimed production house Temple Street Productions to help bring these amazing stories to life.

The Project: Partnering inner-city youth with top industry professionals, allowing each young filmmaker to bring some of Toronto's most amazing untold stories to the big screen.

The Goal: To introduce a new perspective on the realities of inner-city living through film and give young people from Toronto's underserved neighbourhoods industry mentorship, resources and a chance to tell their stories.

The Result: The City Life Film Project. Inner-city youth working with top industry mentors to produce 3 world class short films that add to the mosaic of Toronto's cultural identity.

Stories can act as a release valve for a generation. Seething beneath the carefully cultivated veneer of "Toronto the good" is a mass of untold stories. Stories that can be as beautiful in their struggle as they can be fanciful in their folly.

These stories are worth telling - if not for sheer entertainment value, then for how they can inspire and inform.

The City Life Film Project:

- Gives mentorship and guidance to young people from Toronto's underserved communities.

- Helps youth develop valuable professional networks and establish career paths in a flourishing and resilient cultural industry.

- Supplements the distinct lack of creative and professional resources in many of the "priority neighbourhoods" in Toronto by providing young people with tools and opportunity.

- Tells frequently misinterpreted life stories from an authentic perspective.

The City Life Film Project arrives in the midst of Toronto's cultural and creative renaissance. People from every community in the GTA will benefit from the bridges that the City Life Film Project will build.

Calum deHartog
Temple Street
Remix Project

Calum has seen firsthand the ravages of violence and drugs that permeate the inner city. For close to a decade, Calum has worked the streets of Parkdale and Regent Park as a police officer. He is currently assigned to Special Weapons Team 7 of the Emergency Task Force (Toronto SWAT). Calum has successfully used film to capture the experiences and tell the stories of Toronto's urban landscape. He produced and co-directed an award-winning documentary on women's addiction and recovery alongside Oscar nominated director Hubert Davis, as well as a short film in Moss Park entitled Urban Trenches.

Calum is currently developing a series in association with White Pine Pictures.

Calibre Entertainment

Established in 1996, Temple Street Productions is an award-winning independent television, film and digital media production company based in Toronto, Canada. The company produces a wide range of scripted and unscripted productions from primetime television dramas and comedies, to kids and youth programs, to feature films and a broad array of factual and reality series. Past and present Temple Street projects include Being Erica, Angel on Campus, Billable Hours, Queer As Folk, Darcy's Wild Life, Canada's Next Top Model, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria and Style Her Famous.

BBC Worldwide holds a 25% minority stake in Temple Street Productions and the company is represented by Creative Artists Agency in the United States.

Temple Street Productions

A registered charity working out of Toronto, The Remix Project is a social program that uses arts and culture to engage young people primarily from "priority neighbourhoods". Not only has Remix been named a priority project of David Miller's "Mayor's Panel on Making a Safe City Safer" it was also recognized as a winning program for "excellence in Urban Safety and Crime Prevention" by The United Nations Habitat Programme. The Remix Project brings extensive networks and unmatched expertise in identifying raw artistic talent, ensuring that the young filmmakers who are chosen to partake in the City Life Film Project have the drive, passion and natural abilities to produce world-class work.