BORROWED LIGHT
F I L M S
about
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Founded in 2017 by former TIFF programmer Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo, Borrowed Light Films is a Toronto-based production company committed to making bold, story-driven films by women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ filmmakers.
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bio
Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo is a producer and former Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) programmer. She is the founder of Borrowed Light Films, a Toronto-based production company committed to making bold, story-driven films by women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ filmmakers. Most recently, she produced The Young Arsonists directed by internationally acclaimed visual artist Sheila Pye, which premiered at TIFF in 2022 and has screened at prestigious festivals including the International Film Festival of India and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Agata is the Executive Producer of the award-winning Afghan-Canadian feature film Black Kite, which premiered at TIFF in 2017, and went on to screen at festivals around the world including The Munich Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and Hong Kong International Film Festival. Black Kite won three Leo Awards, for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. Agata is currently in post-production on In the Blue Hills and in development on Raha Shirazi's TERRA and Tarique Qayumi’s The Letter.
For ten years, Agata was a Programmer at the TIFF and was responsible for selecting Canadian feature films (2010 to 2014), and Canadian short films (2006 to 2009). In this role, she introduced audiences to many notable Canadian films including Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, Kim Nguyen’s Rebelle (War Witch), and Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies. Committed to discovering new Canadian talent, during her time at TIFF she selected and championed the early films of some of Canada’s key emerging filmmakers, including Anne Émond, Albert Shin, Igor Drljaca, Sheila Pye, Caroline Monnet, Kazik Radwanski and Sébastien Pilote, among others.
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Agata has sat on juries for the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, the National Screen Institute, FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, Women in Film and Television, Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival and TIFF Kids International Film Festival. Her writing on filmmaker Patricia Rozema has appeared in several publications, including the anthology The Gendered Screen: Canadian Women Filmmakers (2010). Prior to TIFF, she served as a lecturer in American cinema at the University of Genova in Italy. She holds a Master of Arts in Film Studies from York University and is an alumna of Trans Atlantic Partners (TAP).
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