President of the TFCA from 2009-2016, Brian D. Johnson was on staff as a Senior Writer at Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly newsmagazine, from 1985 to 2013, and continues to write for the magazine as Contributing Editor and online film critic. He has also worked as an author, filmmaker, musician and broadcaster. Born in England and raised in Toronto, Johnson has written for publications ranging from The Globe and Mail to Rolling Stone, and has won three National Magazine Awards. He has hosted onstage interviews with authors, actors and filmmakers, most recently, in 2013, an evening of conversation with Al Pacino at Massey Hall in 2013. His books include a 1974 volume of poetry, Marzipan Lies (the first work published by the Porcupine’s Quill), the 1994 novel Volcano Days, and a written history of TIFF, Brave Films, Wild Nights: 25 Years of Festival Fever (2000). Johnson has made two short films, Tell Me Everything (2006) and Yesno (2010). He has also produced and directed two award-winning documentary features, which were both released in theatres across Canada after premiering at TIFF and touring festivals around the world—Al Purdy was Here (2015), which unearths the story of an iconic Canadian poet with a cast that includes Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje; and The Colour Of Ink (2022), which explores the magic of our primal medium through the eyes of a Toronto inkmaker and a constellation of artists that range from a Japanese calligrapher to a New Yorker cartoonist .