The Team

Mark Ellis

Mark Ellis Mark Ellis is a Toronto-based actor and writer.

He co-wrote and starred with Stephanie Morgenstern in the acclaimed short film, Remembrance. The film earned the Jutra Award, a Genie Nomination, top prize at The Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival, Certificates of Merit at the Chicago and San Francisco Film Festivals, five Golden Sheaf nominations, including Best Actor, and was a “Great Expectations” selection at Telluride. Remembrance was designated one of the three best short films in the world in 2003 by the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Mark and Stephanie presented their film and lectured students there and at the European Film College.

A feature film version of Remembrance is in development and has received financial support from Telefilm’s Screenwriting Assistance Program and from the Harold Greenberg Fund for First and Second Draft. Mark and Stephanie were invited to workshop their script at the Berlin International Film Festival this year and participated in the Talent Campus, an International Symposium that featured sessions with Walter Murch, Stephen Frears, Anthony Minghella, Alan Parker, Mike Leigh and Lord David Putnam.

Mark has also written comedy, radio drama, and contributed to CBC’s Basic Black. He has story-edited for theatre and film and has spoken about writing for short film at several colleges and universities. Mark attended Ryerson University with an emphasis in Media Writing.

Mark has an extensive pedigree as an actor. He recently filmed a lead role in the Shaftesbury series The Carol Shields Stories, opposite Patrick Mckenna. He is currently shooting a recurring lead in Dark Oracle, another Shaftesbury series due to air next fall.

Mark co-starred in Tapestry Films’ Children of My Heart, based on the book by Gabrielle Roy. Children of My Heart aired on TMN and CBC. He was seen as the recurring character Neil Armstrong in Showcase’s television series Paradise Falls, and has appeared on This is Wonderland, The Eleventh Hour, Sue Thomas FB Eye and Blue Murder. Other leading roles include Goosebumps (Fox/YTV), Dear America (HBO), and Shooter (Showcase/OMDC).

He also appeared in The Gisella Perl Story (Showtime) with Christine Lahti, The Recruit (Paramount) with Al Pacino, Dash & Lilly with Judy Davis (A&E/Granada directed by Kathy Bates) and Beau Bridges in P.T. Barnum (A&E).

Mark is a critically acclaimed theatre actor, and has performed in major theatres across the country. He received wide praise for his work in the Canadian premieres of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and Anton Piatagorsky’s The Offering (a Dora Award nominee). Other favourite leading roles include Molière’s The Sicilian, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Winter’s Tale, The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Duchess of Malfi, Romeo and Juliet and two-time Dora-winner Molly Wood.

Mark has recently worked with the international, award-winning Modern Times Theatre Company. He appeared in the world premiere production of Stories from the Rains of Love and Death (winner of three Dora awards) and toured their production of Macbeth in Iran. The company will continue touring these plays in Southeast Asia and Europe in 2005.

Stephanie Morgenstern

Stephanie Morgenstern Stephanie Morgenstern is an award-winning actor/filmmaker and two-time Genie nominee. She was designated “National Indie Treasure” by Toronto’s eye Magazine, profiled in Voir magazine as a “New Face to Watch” and selected as one of three “Great Expectations” filmmakers at the Telluride International Film Festival in Colorado. Stephanie was raised in Montreal where she began her career as a professional actor at the age of 15. While working in French and English television, film, and theatre, she got her BA in English from McGill University, and studied drama at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts. She then moved to Toronto to pursue her MA at York University’s Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought. Stephanie is also an alumna of the Women in the Director’s Chair Master Class.

Stephanie just wrapped the role of Olivia in Riding The Bus With My Sister, directed by Anjelica Huston and starring Rosie O’Donnell and Andie McDowell. This fall she returns to her role of Crown Attorney Clark in CBC’s This is Wonderland. Stephanie was widely seen in feature films such as Maelström, The Sweet Hereafter, Revoir Julie, Café Olé and Blizzard. Her television work includes leads and principal roles in 1-800-MISSING, Bliss, All Souls, Wind at My Back, and Butterbox Babies. Recent highlights were the ongoing role of Jennifer in La Vie la vie and Nancy Fish (opposite Beau Bridges) in A&E’s miniseries P.T. Barnum. On stage, Stephanie has played ingenues and leading ladies at the Stratford Festival, the Théâtre Français de Toronto, the Grand Theatre and the Globe Theatre.

Stephanie also directed the critically-acclaimed Remembrance, a short WW2 drama which she co-wrote and co-starred in with actor/writer Mark Ellis. It earned a Genie nomination for Best Short Film, won Best Canadian Short at the Worldwide Short Film Festival (qualifying it for Oscar consideration), and the Jutra Award for Best Short. It was also a Jury Award winner and quintuple nominee (including Best Direction and Best Drama) at Yorkton’s Golden Sheaf Awards. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, toured Canada and the UK with the TIFF’s Film Circuit and the US with Lunafest, won Certificates of Merit from both the San Francisco and Chicago International Film Festivals, and screened in the prestigious “Filmmakers of Tomorrow” section at Telluride. Remembrance was one of three films selected worldwide for presentation at the International Short Film Symposium in Denmark, where Stephanie and Mark Ellis were also invited to address the European Film College. The film was profiled in P.O.V., The Danish Journal of Film Studies—an academic journal dedicated to the story and craft of short films.

Stephanie’s first directing and writing credit was the bilingual Curtains/Rideau, co-directed with her brother Mark Morgenstern. Like Remembrance, it was a Genie nominee for Best Short as well as a quintuple Golden Sheaf nominee. It earned her the award for Best Script at Yorkton, where she and her brother Mark also jointly won for Best Direction. Curtains/Rideau toured English and French-language festivals extensively and won the Palme D’Or at the Festival mondial du cinéma de court métrage in Huy, Belgium.

Mark Ellis and Stephanie were recently selected from over 3600 applicants to attend the 2004 Berlin Film Festival’s Talent Campus, bringing them together with international mentors and fellow filmmakers from across the world.

For more information, visit Stephanie’s website.