Blake Mawson

Blake Mawson is an award-winning filmmaker who has been working in film and television for over 15 years. He began acting at age 16 and has appeared in projects such as Freddy vs. Jason, X-Men 2, Blade: The Series, Poison Ivy and The Strain. Mawson's directorial debut, PYOTR495, won the Emerging Artist Award at the 2016 Inside Out Film Festival and the A&E Short Filmmaker Award 2018 from the National Screen Institute of Canada. The short film was later released to digital platforms and received two 2019 Canadian Screen Award nominations for Best Lead Performance and Best Direction in a Web Program or Series with Alex Ozerov winning the CSA for his role as Pyotr. The film has also been nominated for the Iris Prize (the world's largest short film prize) and Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival's Brigadoon - Paul Naschy Short Film Award. In 2019, Mawson directed the "Hope to Die" video for breakout queer country star, Orville Peck. It was premiered by Vogue Magazine and deemed "striking" by The New Yorker, who claimed that it's "not exactly your grandpa's Wild West". Mawson is the recipient of FilmEmpire's 2019 Diversity Mentorship, a fellow of the Kyoto Filmmaker's Lab (in partnership with the Tokyo International Film Festival and Museum of Kyoto) and is an alumnus of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre Directors' Lab.