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    Director Angie Bird Joins Scheme Engine For U.S. Representation

    By SHOOTNo Comments40 Views
    Angie Bird
    LOS ANGELES --

    Scheme Engine has added director/photographer Angie Bird to its roster for U.S. representation spanning commercials and original content.

    Bird crafts deeply human and charismatic portrayals of community, empowerment and the rituals of celebration across commercials, elevated documentary and short film. A former agency creative, Bird has a body of brand work consisting of cinematic lifestyle campaigns for Nike, Dove, Allstate, Procter & Gamble and the YMCA, among others. Prior to joining Scheme Engine, Bird was most recently represented in the U.S. for commercials by production house Curfew.

    Two years into her career, Bird back in 2016 won a Cannes Young Director Award for “Mean Tweets,” a provocative campaign for Raising the Roof, that challenged stereotypes of unhoused individuals with striking humanizing portraits. The project earned honors at the Clios, and Webbys and was shortlisted at Cannes.

    Her Gillette campaign, “First Shave”–a heartfelt examination of masculinity in the trans community–earned three Cannes prizes and won honors at the Clios and The One Show.

    As a director invested in films that ignite conversation, and inspire action, Bird embraces challenging, overlooked stories, bringing to light complex, authentically heroic characters faced with cultural stigmatization and gender-based discrimination. She co-wrote and directed “Short Life Stories” for White Ribbon and Canadian agency Bensimon Byrne–a shattering call to dismantle transphobia, following the journey of a transgender woman as she steps into her authentic life. The campaign won six awards at One SCREEN 2024, including Best in Region: North America and Best in Show

    “I’m inspired,” affirmed Bird, “to create stories that champion the human spirit, balancing raw emotion with cinematic craft, making work that feels authentic yet is beautifully told.”

    Bird’s latest project for White Ribbon, “My Friend, Max Hate,” is an urgent and affecting film exposing the rising influence of misogynistic figures on young men. Produced by Westside Studio in Toronto, which continues to rep Bird in Canada, the piece earned inclusion in SHOOT’s The Best Work You May Never See gallery last month.

    Scheme Engine executive producer Sheira Rees-Davies said, “Angie is effusively optimistic, highly collaborative and dedicated to making bold, unpredictable work with integrity.”

    Exec producer Jannie McInnes added, “Angie’s an incredible storyteller–she looks behind the obvious, into the layers to give us insight into her characters whether they’re on the dance floor, in a shelter or making waves on a basketball court.”

    Category:News
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    The Oscars Are More International Than Ever. But Is The International Film Category Broken?

    Friday, February 21, 2025

    For many filmmakers, the Oscars are a pipe dream. But not because they think their movies aren't good enough.

    The Iranian director, Mohammad Rasoulof, for instance, knew his native country was more likely to jail him than submit his film for the Academy Awards. Iran, like some other countries including Russia, has an official government body that selects its Oscar submission. For a filmmaker like Rasoulof, who has brazenly tested his country's censorship restrictions, that made the Oscars out of the question.

    "A lot of independent filmmakers in Iran think that we would never be able to make it to the Oscars," Rasoulof said in an interview through an interpreter. "The Oscars were never part of my imagination because I was always at war with the Iranian government."

    Unlike other categories at the Academy Awards, the initial selection for the best international film category is outsourced. Individual countries make their submission, one movie per country.

    Sometimes that's an easy call. When the category — then "best foreign language film" — was established, it would have been hard to quibble with Italy's pick: Federico Fellini's "La Strada," the category's first winner in 1957.

    But, often, there's great debate about which movie a country ought to submit — especially when undemocratic governments do the selecting. Rasoulof's fellow Iranian New Wave director Jafar Panahi likewise had no hopes of Iran selecting his 2022 film "No Bears" for the Oscars. At the time, Panahi was imprisoned by Iran, which didn't release him until he went on a hunger strike.

    Rasoulof's film, "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" — a movie shot clandestinely in Iran before its director and cast fled the country — ultimately was nominated for best... Read More

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