Bio

Powys Dewhurst. Producer | Event Producer| Creative Strategist | Cultural Programmer | Filmmaker Development | Film History Enthusiast|

“Why don’t I ever meet young men like this?” — Sir Sidney Poitier, Academy Award winner, after a midnight dinner and interview with Powys Dewhurst

“I’m impressed with you.” — Terry Moore, Oscar-nominated actress and former partner of RKO head and aviation industrialist Howard Hughes

INTRODUCTION & EARLY CAREER: Over the past 20 years, Powys Dewhurst has built a multidimensional career as a live event architect, student filmmaker mentor, producer, creative strategist, A/V technician, cultural programmer, film history nerd and archivist, and advocate for inclusive storytelling. He works at the intersection of screen-based industries, STEM-infused storytelling, postsecondary student development, and fandom culture, advancing innovative, community-driven programming for emerging creators.

Powys’ career began on the ground — volunteering for a film distribution company two hours from home, supporting the circulation of studio titles and educational films to universities, colleges, and K-12 schools. In tandem, he assisted on student film projects at the Canadian Film Centre under the mentorship of cinematographer Kim Derko, CSC. On commercial and indie sets, he trained as a camera assistant working with 16mm and 35mm film and digital video formats, gaining technical fluency with Panavision, Arriflex, Sony, Fuji, Kodak, Panasonic, and Canon systems. Simultaneously, he served as one of the youngest imaging product specialists at Black’s Photo Corp’s flagship Toronto store, where he honed frontline client service, vendor communication, and sponsor-facing technical sales.

As a lifelong film history enthusiast, Powys built an expansive private archive of thousands of titles on VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and 16mm, ranging from Forbidden Planet, A Raisin in the Sun, Westworld, Logan’s Run, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Harder They Come, The Red Shoes, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, War of the Worlds, The Thing, Soy Cuba, Red River, The Bicycle Thieves, The Killers, White Heat, Only Angels Have Wings, Goodfellas, Fantasia, Shane, Sullivan’s Travels, Claudine, The Naked Spur, Kiss Me Deadly, The Ox-Bow Incident, Manhattan, Lawrence of Arabia to Fargo, Gilda, The Great Escape, The Third Man, Alien, Once Upon a Time in the West and countless more from circa 1931 to 1999.

A voracious reader and researcher, he made the Toronto Reference Library and North York Public Library his second home. He often carried heavy 16mm projectors and reels by foot, train, or bus to Scarborough, regardless of the weather, in pursuit of his cinematic education. Just as passionate about music, he studied the work of composers like Quincy Jones, Maurice Jarre, and Ennio Morricone. At age 10 in Barbados, he nervously prank-called Golden Age actress Claudette Colbert — his first brush with a screen icon, and a foreshadowing of the legacy interviews to come.

FILMMAKER DEVELOPMENT, INDUSTRY EVALUATION & PROGRAM STRATEGY: From 2012 to 2015, Powys served as producer and program manager for a national pitch conference presented by Bell Media. Under his leadership, he increased the caliber of applicants, submissions tripled, prize packages grew from $15,000 to $303,000 a 1920% increase, and Canada’s first pitch prize offering professional visual effects (VFX) services was introduced.

In 2014 he successfully negotiated and created a prototype model with Bell Media BravoFACT-for the first time integrating their inhouse funding model with his pitch competition and bringing their inhouse evaluators onto his pitch competition jury for evaluation. This prototype was adopted from 2015-2017 by Hot Docs, imagineNATIVE, DOC Institute, Reel Asian, WIFT-T, Inside Out, and the Calgary International Film Festival. Powys specifically created opportunities for women, neurodivergent artists, and artists living with disabilities.

He led weeks-long multitiered content evaluation processes of scripted and unscripted content and sourced senior leaders from TIFF, Telefilm, eOne, CBC, Corus, the NFB, and Cream Productions, and many more.

FILM STUDENT OUTREACH & ADVOCACY: Powys has mentored a diverse cohort of student and emerging filmmakers from institutions including Sheridan College, York University, Toronto Metropolitan University, University of Toronto, University of Southern California, Toronto Film School, Trebas Institute, and Centennial College. In 2014, he placed a Sheridan student at Discovery Channel; by 2023, she became the first Canadian wheelchair user to produce a nationally broadcast documentary series. That same year, he successfully lobbied for a former mentee’s acceptance into one of two slots in a highly competitive Ph.D. film program.

Given his long history with the Canadian Film Centre beginning with his first film job as a kid, to providing CFC with Planet Fantastic film student volunteers and paid employment, producing a film on the CFC Programs and its CEO, to advising behind the scenes on DEI challenges, Powys acted as a volunteer advisor to the Black Students Alumni of the Canadian Film Centre from 2021-2024.

Through his initiative Planet Fantastic, created in 2017, he has created industry internships, screenings, jobs, mentorships.

INVESTING IN EMERGING FILMMAKER TALENT: In 2017, he sponsored five horror-themed microbudget short films by emerging Canadian filmmakers through Wattpad and CineCoup: Five Course Meal, Clown Killer, Baby Blue Canoe, The Window, and The Chair. In 2019 he later initiated and launched a micro-sponsorship program with STAMP in Canada and the UK to support postproduction with a focus on filmmakers with 65% of support going to women.

PUBLIC SPEAKING & COMMUNITY EVENTS: Powys is a public speaker, moderator, and event contributor. He has appeared on stage at CMPA Prime Time, The Spoke Club, Raindance Film Festival (UK), Toronto Black Film Festival, Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s Screen Week, and he has been interviewed including CBC’s Metro Morning by Andy Barrie, Molly Thomas, the Hamilton Spectator, and others, and has spoken at the Nia Centre for the Arts in 2025 on a panel of four

SPEAKING, TRAINING & STORYTELLING FOR YOUTH AND STUDENTS: Powys Dewhurst has shared his knowledge and enthusiasm for film and media storytelling with students and young audiences through a wide range of institutional and community-based venues:

• Guest speaker and lecturer at:
  1. Toronto District School Board – Invited to speak with junior students
  2. University of Toronto – Literature and Film class
  3. Toronto Public Library – Film appreciation and literacy talks
  4. Driftwood Community Centre – Youth storytelling workshop
  5. Chicago International Children’s Film Festival – Delivered lectures to young audiences
• Workshops and training programs delivered through:
  1. The Academy of the Impossible – A peer-to-peer lifelong learning network offering educational programs and events
  2. Fright Film Academy – Genre and horror storytelling training for youth
  3. Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) – Technical workshops for emerging creators
• Mentorship and development support:
  1. Mentored film crew in Nairobi, Kenya on M-NET TV series, The Agency
  2. Mentored young artists, film technicians, and student filmmakers in Toronto
  3. Created practical training environments that blend film history, technical education, and storytelling mentorship for the next generation of media creators

CULTURAL PROGRAMMING & LIVE EVENT PRODUCTION: Powys Dewhurst has produced and programmed events at various venues and festivals. His work includes:

• Programming and event production at:
  1. University of Toronto
  2. Hot Docs Cinema and Hot Docs Festival
  3. Ontario Place
  4. Royal Cinema
  5. Toronto Metropolitan University
  6. Canadian Film Centre
  7. Toronto Reference Library
• Sourcing, curating, and hosting over 400 speakers, panelists, industry instructors, project evaluators, mentors, and keynotes.
  1. Guests have included scientists, Oscar winners, showrunners, journalists, academics, and educators.
  2. Events have drawn audiences of up to 450 attendees.
• Signature lifetime achievement tributes:
  1. Graeme Ferguson – IMAX co-founder and co-inventor, in collaboration with University of Toronto and Victoria College.
  2. Norman Jewison – Oscar-nominated director of Moonstruck and In the Heat of the Night.
  3. Alvin Rakoff – British-Canadian filmmaker who gave Sean Connery and Michael Caine their first roles. Powys conducted the final major public event in his honour before his passing.
• Panel productions and moderation:
  1. “TV Hitmakers” – Featuring showrunners from Star Trek, Vikings, Rookie Blue, Flashpoint.
  2. “Brazen Journalism” – With Robyn Doolittle (Globe and Mail), Peter Raymont (White Pine Pictures), Suroosh Alvi (VICE Media co-founder), and a CTV W5 correspondent.
• Fandom and STEM-themed genre storytelling events:
  1. Superman: The Movie 40th Anniversary Tribute
     • Featured sourced guests: director Richard Donner, Oscar-winning VFX innovator Zoran Perisic, and two original supporting cast members.
     • Superhero comic showcase
  2. The Incredible Shrinking Man jazz reinterpretation event
     • Live performance by Brownman Ali and Nick Maclean.
  3. Avengers: Infinity War and Rocketman community screenings
     • In partnership with Hot Docs and Toronto film industry associations.
• Youth media literacy and creative development:
  1. In 2022, his Planet Fantastic initiative (founded 2017) created a comic book workshop in Regent Park.
     • Focused on literacy, youth media, and visual storytelling.
     • Delivered in partnership with Regent Park Film Festival.

MEDIA A/V DOCUMENTATION & ARCHIVAL WORK: Powys with his background as camera technician/event videographer, has documented live and prerecorded events. Powys has supervised and coordinated all documentation of video, audio, and digital stills with a crew of 1 to 30 students and professionals and university and college professors as direct reports. Occasionally he filmed the events himself with at least one camera assistant volunteer.

FILM HISTORY PRESERVATION & INTERVIEWS: As a cultural historian and archivist, Powys Dewhurst has conducted and preserved over 400 legacy interviews. Notable interview subjects include:

• Mitch Dubin – Steven Spielberg’s cameraman (Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Amistad, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Jerry Maguire, Heathers, Avengers).
• Sidney Poitier – Academy Award winner (To Sir With Love, A Raisin in the Sun, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Defiant Ones).
• Oliver Stone – Oscar-winning director and screenwriter (Platoon, JFK).
• Ann Druyan Sagan – Creative director, NASA Voyager Interstellar Message Project; co-creator of COSMOS.
• Peter Ramsey – Director (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), first Black filmmaker to win an Oscar for animated feature.
• Douglas Trumbull – VFX pioneer (2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner).
• Lee Grant – Blacklisted Oscar-winning actress (Shampoo, In the Heat of the Night).
• Earl Holliman – Actor (Forbidden Planet, Giant, Last Train from Gun Hill, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral).
• Marsha Hunt – Blacklisted actress, one of the last surviving Golden Age stars. Powys conducted her final three interviews at age 104, as the world’s oldest actress.
• Nehemiah Persoff – Character actor (Some Like It Hot, Yentl, The Twilight Zone). Powys conducted his final interview at age 102.
• Alvin Rakoff – Director of A Voyage Round My Father. Final full-length interview before his passing.
• Richard Wesley – Screenwriter (Uptown Saturday Night), with Oscar nominee Terry Moore (Come Back Little Sheba), also known for her relationship with RKO studio head and aviation industrialist Howard Hughes.

Additional subjects include:

• Professors from Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and University of Toronto.
• The original Star Wars crew from Elstree Studios (UK).
• All major composers for the Star Trek franchise.
• Creatives from The Incredible Hulk and The Bionic Woman TV series.
• Nicholas Hammond – Actor (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Sound of Music).

CREATIVE PROJECTS & FANDOM: As a filmmaker, Powys created Delroy Kincaid, a simple live-action/animated fantasy short about an immigrant artist — funded by the National Film Board of Canada and selected to represent Canada at World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Viewed by over 73 million attendees, the film is now distributed across public libraries in North America.

Powys was a guest co-host of Trek It or Wreck It in 2020, a web series reviewing Star Trek media and exploring pop culture through a fan and critical lens. He was a featured speaker at the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s Screen Week panel on Canada’s legacy of science fiction and fantasy in film and television in 2024.

LEADERSHIP, ADVOCACY & MEMBERSHIPS: He has served as a member of the Sheridan College Professional Advisory Council (Film & Media), the Giant Screen Cinema Association Innovation Committee (focused on IMAX and next-generation Large Format film exhibition), and has been a member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and the Documentary Organization of Canada. He has served as a board director at Regent Park Film Festival and Charles Street Video, two of Toronto’s most community-rooted cultural institutions.

Since 2007, Powys has championed systemic change in Canada’s film and television industries. Since 2018, he has especially highlighted the underrepresentation of Black men in executive roles across broadcasters, funding bodies, and training institutions. He has engaged directly with senior leaders of the gamut of broadcasting, funding bodies film schools, and film festivals, and institutions pushing for equity-driven structural reform rooted in access, accountability, and community trust, and balance. His focus remains on systemic, sustainable change for all people.

He continues to build bridges across arts & science disciplines, cultures, and generations — ensuring that everyone with a story to tell has a seat at the table.

FUN FACT: As a child of about age 11 in Barbados, Powys and his friend Mathew turned his comic book collection into a front-lawn lending library to earn money for more comics. They rode their bikes around the neighbourhood with signs that read “Read All The Comics You Can Read for $1,” they attracted several kids — young readers sprawled across his lawn, front porch, and tarps, immersed in Marvel, DC, Tintin, Archie, Smurfs, Richie Rich, Asterix, and Obelix. This little initiative fostered community literacy and engagement long before he knew what to call it. Either way, the funds raised helped the two boys buy more comics and they made more pals.

FUN FACT: Around the same time, at the age of approximately 10, Powys nervously prank-called Golden Age Oscar winner Claudette Colbert, then living in retirement on the island. Years later, in his 30s, a dinner and recorded interview with his hero Sidney Poitier grew into a warm acquaintanceship filled with book exchanges and infrequent conversations, until Poitier’s passing.

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE IN PHOTOJOURNALIST/JOURNALISM & PRODUCTION SUPPORT:

Earlier in his career, Powys Dewhurst worked as a freelance writer and photojournalist, with work published in notable outlets such as WIRED Magazine, Toronto Star, Los Angeles Times, East of the City, Saturday Night, Island Life, The Chronicle, and The Dominica Sun. These assignments offered Powys the opportunity to explore immersive storytelling through lived experience — flying a plane, hang gliding, and driving a racecar, two of which became subjects of his published pieces.

In 2005, Powys was invited to support and coordinate entertainment hospitality for the cast, producers, and crew — including legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer — during the two-month on-location shoot of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on the island of Dominica. The experience offered an unexpected but memorable entry into large-scale international production environments and putting out fires, which he was inexperienced at back then.

His endorsement letters include UNESCO

Intro

Powys Dewhurst
Producer | Event Producer | Creative Strategist | Cultural Programmer | Filmmaker Development | Film History Enthusiast

“Why don’t I ever meet young men like this?” — Sir Sidney Poitier, Academy Award winner, after a midnight dinner and interview with Powys Dewhurst.

“I’m impressed with you.” — Terry Moore, Oscar-nominated actress and former partner of RKO head and aviation industrialist Howard Hughes.

Over the past 20 years, Powys Dewhurst has built a multifaceted career at the intersection of screen industries, STEM-infused storytelling, and fandom culture. As a live event architect, producer, creative strategist, and advocate for inclusive storytelling, Powys has developed innovative, community-driven programming for emerging creators. His diverse background spans mentoring student filmmakers, curating cultural programs, documenting film history, and championing systemic change in the media industry.

His career began humbly, volunteering for a film distribution company and assisting on student film projects at the Canadian Film Centre. From there, Powys trained on commercial and indie sets, honing his technical skills with leading camera and film systems, and later served as one of the youngest imaging product specialists at Fujifilm owned Black’s Photo Corp. His lifelong passion for film history led to an expansive private archive and a deep commitment to film preservation, which later inspired his extensive interview work with film pioneers like Sidney Poitier, Lee Grant, Peter Ramsey, Nehemiah Persoff, Oliver Stone, and Douglas Trumbull.

Powys’ contributions to filmmaker development include spearheading pitch competitions, mentoring emerging student filmmakers from a wide range of institutions, and fostering industry internships and job opportunities. His work advocating for growth and inclusion, including students and people living with disabilities, has had an effect, from negotiating prototype funding models with industry giants and the first time Visual Effects prizes were included in a pitch competition and an impactful scale.

As a public speaker he has spoken the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival and the Toronto Black Film Festival, and on CBC Metro Morning with Andy Barrie and Molly Thomas. He has also contributed to youth education through various workshops and lectures at schools, libraries, and film festivals.

Fun Fact: As a child of 10 or 11 in Barbados, Powys and a friend Matthew Lewis created a paid front-lawn comic book lending library with his extensive comic book and graphic novel collection — fostering literacy and community engagement with neighbourhood kids long before he knew the terms “literacy” and “community engagement.” Kids came on their little bikes from everywhere. The revue allowed the two broke friends to buy more comics. And they made new friends. Win/Win.