Migrant Dreams author wins 2017 Hillman Prize

Migrant Dreams author wins 2017 Hillman Prize

Min Sook Lee and Lisa Valencia-Svensson

The 2017 Canadian Hillman Prize went to Min Sook Lee for her groundbreaking TVO documentary, Migrant Dreams, which profiles a group of migrant agricultural workers who were lured to Canada by promises of high-paying greenhouse jobs only to find exploitation, surveillance, and intimidation via the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Migrant Dreams, which Lee wrote, was co-produced by her and multi-awarded film producer Filipino-Canadian Lisa Valencia-Svensson.

The following were lifted from the website of the Canadian Hillman Prize:

Min Sook Lee has directed numerous critically-acclaimed social documentaries, including: My Toxic Baby, Donald Brittain Gemini winner Tiger Spirit, Hot Docs Best Canadian Feature winner Hogtown, Gemini nominated El Contrato, Badge of Pride and Canadian Screen Award winner The Real Inglorious Bastards. Min Sook is also an Assistant Professor at OCAD University where she teaches Art and Social Change. Min Sook is a recipient of the Cesar E. Chavez Black Eagle Award for El Contrato’s impact on the rights of migrant workers, and Canada’s oldest labour arts festival, Mayworks, has named the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Award in her honour. More recently, in 2016 she was awarded the Alanis Obomsawin Award for Commitment to Community and Resistance.

Lisa Valencia-Svensson is an award-winning documentary film producer based in Toronto. Her first feature length documentary Herman’s House won an Emmy for Outstanding Arts & Culture Programming and was broadcast on the PBS documentary series POV. Migrant Dreams is her second feature. She has associate produced several films, including Emmy-nominated The World Before Her, which have broadcast internationally and have screened and won awards at festivals including TIFF, Tribeca, and Hot Docs. She recently joined the producing team for Untitled Jennifer Laude Documentary. Her passion is for film projects which explore issues of inequality and social justice, and which encourage audiences to view their world through a constructively critical and creatively unique lens.