James Swirsky

James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot are the directors, producers, editors, cinematographers and distributors behind the Sundance award-winning feature documentary, Indie Game: The Movie. Indie Game: The Movie was one of the first films to be born on Kickstarter. It was funded in part by 2 successful crowd-funding campaigns. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012, where it won the Best Editing Award in World Documentary Cinema and was optioned by HBO and Scott Rudin. The filmmakers chose to self-release Indie Game: The Movie in several innovative ways. They organized a 15 city, in-person US tour, presented by Adobe, and opened the film in several theaters in the States and Canada. Soon after the theatrical opening, Indie Game: The Movie released world-wide on iTunes (topping the charts at #1 in documentaries & #14 of all movies). It was the first feature film released on Steam, one of the world’s biggest gaming platforms, and it released on the film’s website DRM-free, powered by VHX Artists. Indie Game: The Movie is a New York Times Critics’ Pick and one of top reviewed movies of 2012 on Rotten Tomatoes. It has been selected for many festivals including SXSW, the Game Developers Conference, Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest. The film continues to screen all over the world and is available in 17 languages. Prior to Indie Game: the Movie, James and Lisanne ran the commercial production company, BlinkWorks, producing work for major companies and governments in Canada and US. Through BlinkWorks, James directed/produced 30+ episodes of an educational green construction series that is licensed to governments and companies. James has an MBA and has directed several award-winning short films. Prior to joining BlinkWorks, Lisanne was at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She worked in CBC TV’s news and documentary departments, and went on to be a producer/editor for national lifestyle series. She also holds a degree and diploma in Communications.