Symmetree media is an award-winning producer of programming that incorporates health and creativity with a multi-cultural perspective. We are an independent production company based in Toronto, Canada that specializes in creating unique portraits with integrity. Our library consists of 9 programs (over 7 hours of programming) with a focus on the effects of rare medical conditions on people’s daily lives and a half-hour series on Canadian poets entitled Heart of a Poet.
One of these documentaries, Life's a Twitch, celebrated difference through a profile of Duncan McKinlay, a man with Tourette Syndrome. Our world premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival was sold out. Since then, the film was awarded the Golden Sheaf for Best Educational/Instructional Video at the Yorkton Film Festival in 2002, and was nominated for 2 Geminis in the Best Science, Technology, Nature, Environment or Adventure Documentary Program, and Best Picture Editing in a Documentary Program or Series categories in 2003. The film was also awarded Second Prize in the category "Education à la santé" for Life’s A Twitch at Le Festival International du Film de Santé 2004 in Liege, Belgium.
Our feature documentary, How Come You Walk Funny?, followed the 2002-03 academic year of the Integrated Kindergarten Program at the Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre School. Called the “Utopia of Kindergartens” by one of the parents, the world of these children is truly exceptional. A bold experiment, this “reverse integration” model turns the tables and asks ‘normal’ kids to meet kids with physical disabilities on their turf. A one-hour version of How Come You Walk Funny? had its television premiere in 2004 on Discovery Health Channel Canada. The film had its world premiere at the 2005 Guangzhou International Documentary Festival, and recently won an Honorable Mention as Best Feature Documentary at the 2006 Reel Heart International Film Festival in Toronto.v
We produced a poetry series for Book Television and Bravo! entitled The Heart of a Poet in co-production with Makin’ Movies Inc. and four films for the Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada. We have just started production on the second video in a documentary series on Stickler Syndrome which has been filmed in Canada, the United States and Great Britain which launched in the US and UK, as well as a half-hour documentary on the 2006 Special Olympics Canada National Summer Games for CTV's Manitoba Moments.
Our development slate includes a number of projects that developed out of our participation in 2005 GZDOC festival and the 2006 DOK Leipzig as part of delegations of Canadian documentary producers organized by Hot Docs and the OMDC. We are developing these projects further with the assistance of the OMDC’s Export Fund.
If you would like to meet with us at Hot Docs in Toronto or Sunnyside of the DOC in France, please contact Tina Hahn.