ELLA COOPER is an award winning producer, director, writer, multi-media artist, educator and cultural leader based in Toronto (Mississauga Territory), born in Montreal (Abenaki Territory), who has been working in the arts, film and cultural sector for over 25 years.
Her creative work spans from broadcast media, photography, writing, textile and illustration.
In film and media, Ella loves to direct children’s content, episodic series, comedy, contemporary dance, music videos and art docs. She was long listed for a 2023 Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Youth Series and is going into her 3rd season as writer director for the TVO Kids series Sunny’s Quest produced by Apartment 11. Ella recently Director shadowed Zoe Hopkins on Season 2 of CBC Run the Burbs and director Aleysa Young on Untitled Films Capital One commercial shoot. She received the award for Best Canadian Film (Caribbean Tales) for her doc Black Men Loving, with her limited series Dance for Life receiving Honorable Mention for Best Documentary (San Francisco Dance Film Festival). To date Ella has created and directed over 20 short films including one animation for CBC Books.
As an artist, Ella’s work has shown in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada Council Ajemo Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Dunlop Gallery, Nuit Blanche, Exposure Festival and beyond. Her photo series ‘Witness’ received a 2020 Editors Pick in Canadian Art Magazine and her documentary, dance and video installations have been presented in galleries, public spaces and film festivals in Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amsterdam and Berlin, with an upcoming show in Vienna June 2024. She receives continued support from the Ontario, Toronto & Canada Arts Councils.
As a cultural leader and producer, Ella is the founder of Black Women Film! Canada a not for profit supporting the development of Black women in film and media. She is a renowned speaker and facilitator who creates transformative leadership programs and impactful master classes internationally and enjoys running Brown Rabbit Studios, her new boutique production company that brings together award-winning Black and BIPOC women creators, and our allies, to create incredible video works for tv, arts, lifestyle and children’s content programming with a new animation in development with CBC Kids, Sphere Media & Karen Chapman and multiple on going commissions.
Ella received the Tiffany’s Hometown Hero Award and was nominated for the 2019 TAC Mayor's Arts Award for cultural leadership and featured as one of 33 Black Canadians Making Change Now in Chatelaine magazine.
Black Women Film! Canada
PHOTOGRAPHY & INSTALLATION
EMBODIED LAND / ECSTATIC RESISTANCE
Ecstatic nude exploration in the Canadian landscape. Exploring themes of Black Joy, reclamation, Canadian national identity and embodies elated resistance.
ECSTATIC NUDES
Reclaiming the Black female nude through embodied elated resistance #BlackJoy
VIDEO INSTALLATION : V-FORMATION
Part of the BODY LAND IDENTITY series : locating the Black female body in the Canadian landscape
NEW COMMUNITY PHOTO SERIES IN DEVELOPMENT : MOTHER BODY ERASURE
Mother Body Erasure Identity : Featured in Lilith Magazine
'NO SELF' : Butoh Portraits : featuring 4Rude Dance Company
WITNESS : Berlin Photobooth Series : Photo Series : NEW SOLO EXHIBITION ON TOUR feature at Fenster Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery and Jewish Museum of Vienna (2024)
PHOTO SERIES : BODY LAND IDENTITY
Participatory photo video series and workshop exploring representation of the Black female body in Canadian landscape...images coming soon.
UNTITLED : NEW EXPLORATIONS : Berlin Residency
VIDEO COMMISSIONS
DANCE FILM WORKS
(2023) Credit : Director. New dance film documentary commission featuring the Esmeralda Spanish Dance Company and special guests (Jose Donaldo and Caroline Pointe)
Montreal Performance Video Commission : Filmed by Ella Cooper featuring Gerry Trentham, Diane Roberts & Sylvie Bouchard
DANCE FOR LIFE : DANCE FILM DOCUMENTARY Featuring : Pulga Muchochoma
Honorable Mention for 'BEST DOCUMENTARY' San Francisco Dance Film Festival
Official Selection - 2017 Dance Camera West (LA), 2018 Cinedans International Dance Film Festival (Amsterdam), 2018 ReFrame Dance Film Festival, 2017 Dance Made in Canada Festival (Toronto) 2018 World Cinema Festival (Amsterdam) and featured on Metro Morning & Bell Fibe TV.
IMPOSSIBLE LONGING : VIDEO PERFORMANCE ART
Video Installation / Experimental film : Contemplating notions of Blacklessness, land, reclamation and the absurd.
GONE : Dance Film Improvisation :
Credit : Director & DP
Shot in Necropolis, Toronto’s oldest cemetery. This film is part of a series of dance film improvisations Ella created with local dance artists to explore how space and the constraints of time could inform new dance on screen works. The collaboration led to a piece that is reminiscent of Afro spirituals, exploring themes of death, loss and longing.
Exhibited at the Canada Council for the Arts Ajagemo Gallery, Thunder Struck Group Show, curated by Jenn Goodwin
“Ella’s work also reveals how aesthetic practices effectively emphasize the possibility of shifting the colonizing gaze through re-signification and through complex intersections of multiple places, historical temporalities, and subject positions. This work is a relevant reflection of art and humanity in our current age of transitional subjectivities and changeable social realities.”
PHOTO SERIES : KRUMP BATTLE (TUDS TORONTO 2016)
CHILDREN’S CONTENT & illustration
KIKI & KWAME : New Animated Series in development with CBC Kids & Sphere Media - Check out the Brown Rabbit Studios Website for details!
COMMUNITY PROJECTS
Youth dance film workshop & showcase
(2017) Luminato Festival Video Commission featuring Broken Social Scene, musicians from the Arts & Crafts Label and Regent Park School of Music
Black Girls Film Camp
EMERGENCE : Arts & Equity : Toronto Arts Foundation
Award winning Documentary Short
Mark Morris Dance & Regent Park LUMINATO FESTIVAL