FiA2.0 Developers
Meet The Team
Charles Mayer
Charles, FiA's beloved "Robert”, is a stage and screen actor, producer, writer, drama teacher and acting coach who has worked in French and English in Canada, France and Australia. He has performed lead roles on stage over 500 times, adding to his credit 150+ days on film and television sets as principal talent. He has produced, written and performed leading roles in numerous noted productions including A Strange Midsummer Night’s Dream by Theatre of North America of which he was artistic director; the webseries Supernovae; and the award-winning documentary on cabaret, The Torchbearers, producing the French content filmed on location in Paris.
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Julia Cook-Ravel
Julia has produced numerous award-winning productions from conception through completion, from independent documentary and feature films with distribution on Broadway On Demand, to international advertising campaigns for such noted agencies as Wieden & Kennedy. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she has worked with noted directors such as
Gus Van Sant.
Julia currently resides in Quebec and works internationally.
Yves Christian Fournier
Yves Christian Fournier is a Montreal-Los Angeles based film, television and commercial director. He is recognized for having won the 1997-1998 edition of the Canadian television series Course Destination Monde and for his critically acclaimed first feature, Everything is Fine (Berlin Panorama selection, Best First Feature, Seattle, Best Feature ,Genie Awards). In addition to his second feature film N.O.I.R, Yves Christian directed the series Blue Moon (Nominated in the Drama Series category at the Banff World Media Festival), Demain des Hommes (La Rochelle, 2018) and the critically acclaimed Too Much Love (distributed worldwide). He recently directed 3 episodes of Clean Sweep, a USA-Irish-Canadian co-production shot in Dublin for Incendo/Shinawil.
Brian J. Reilly
Associate Professor Modern Languages & Literatures Fordham University with a Ph.D. (French) In 2008 Brian completed a dissertation in the Department of French at Yale University and was an Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center of Yale University. From 2003 to 2013 Brian worked with Pierre J. Capretz, creator of French in Action and the Capretz Method, at the Language Development Studio, where he helped produce the interactive intermediate-level French program "Jules et Jim interactif".
Michael Friesner
Assistant Professor Teaching Stream, Department of French, University of Toronto with a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania as well as an MBA from Georgetown University. Michael has taught French, linguistics, language pedagogy, and/or English at the Université du Québec à Montréal, the University of Pennsylvania, the Rassias Center for World Languages and Cultures at Dartmouth College, York University, and Ryerson University.
& Advisors
BUSINESS, SALES & MARKETING:
Liliana Vanaanen
Liliana’s extensive background includes an MBA and over 15 years of experience in sales and marketing of educational curriculum k-12 and HE. She brings valuable business and marketing experience to the team, including prior experience at a tech start-up in the Bay Area.
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Saber Tiki
Saber is a Montreal based marketing guru. He originated Time Out Montreal and has invaluable relations in the Quebec business, government and cultural communities.
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PRODUCTION AND POST-PRODUCTION:
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Christian Siret
Christian is a graduate from the École des Métiers d’Art with a rich history in the world of art, theatre and film. He was notably French in Action’s art director and invaluable member of the original team and Art-Director at Yale University from 1985 to1987. He has been artistic director on numerous films, notably on Ariane Mnouchkine's Molière.
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Kevin D’Haeze
Kevin is an in-demand editor and owner of Rock Island Media. His rich work history includes numerous projects for noted brands such as Nike, Adidas, HP, Bombardier and PBS featured documentary films. Kevin specializes in production, editing, graphics and animation and edited the FiA 2.0 Trailer.
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