Paulina Abarca-Cantin
- Actress
- Producer
- Visual Effects
Over three decades, Paulina's career has spanned the areas of business affairs, communications, content creation, production, post-production and distribution within Canada's Indigenous, English and French-language creative industries.
As a programming specialist, she has developed, curated and delivered a number of innovative, award-winning, multi-year digital projects reporting to public and private stakeholders.
During her tenure as Programming and Operations Lead of the Encore+ YouTube channel created by the Canada Media Fund in an unprecedented collaboration with industry partners, she oversaw the digitization and promotion of over 3000 iconic Canadian films, documentaries and television series. Passionate the preservation of Canada's audiovisual heritage and cultural memory, Paulina commissioned and oversaw the restoration of important feature films including Eclipse (Jeremy Podeswa), L'Arrache-coeur (Mireille Dansereau), The Wars (Robin Phillips), When Night is Falling (Patricia Rozema), Monica, la mitraille (Charles Binamé), Johnny Mnemonic (Robert Longo), A Silent Love (Federico Hidalgo), Remembrance (Stephanie Morgenstern) and Farley Mowat's The Snow Walker (Charles Martin Smith) over 2018-2022.
In 2020, she launched and executive produced Encore+ Originals featuring A-list Canadian talent revisiting iconic past collaborations. Recorded via Zoom during the pandemic and leveraging the YouTube Premiere feature, the initiative fostered discoverability, and deep engagement with global audiences, festivals and archives.
As co-founder and past executive producer of the Women in Film and Television International's Short Film Showcase, Paulina curated three editions of the Showcase, presented in twenty cities across three continents. Featuring award-winning short films directed by women from all continents, it proved extremely popular, serving as a vital advocate for increased gender balance in the global film industry. Prior to this role, she served as Vice-President, Programming and later as President of Women in Film and Television Montréal (Allia).
She has served as a programming specialist for First Person Digital (NFB/Ada X), the 2010 HTMles Festival of Media Art + Digital Culture and 2023 and 2024 editions of the International Film Festival of Ottawa's Save As Symposium: The Future of Restoring, Preserving, Distributing and Exhibiting Heritage Cinema.
At the start of her career, Paulina developed her curatorial competencies serving as founding Artistic Director of a Montreal-based theatre company for over ten years.
She is an alumna of the Media Leadership Program at York University's Schulich School of Business, HEC Montréal, the National Theatre School of Canada, the University of Toronto and the Neil Munro Intern Directors Project at Shaw Festival.
As a programming specialist, she has developed, curated and delivered a number of innovative, award-winning, multi-year digital projects reporting to public and private stakeholders.
During her tenure as Programming and Operations Lead of the Encore+ YouTube channel created by the Canada Media Fund in an unprecedented collaboration with industry partners, she oversaw the digitization and promotion of over 3000 iconic Canadian films, documentaries and television series. Passionate the preservation of Canada's audiovisual heritage and cultural memory, Paulina commissioned and oversaw the restoration of important feature films including Eclipse (Jeremy Podeswa), L'Arrache-coeur (Mireille Dansereau), The Wars (Robin Phillips), When Night is Falling (Patricia Rozema), Monica, la mitraille (Charles Binamé), Johnny Mnemonic (Robert Longo), A Silent Love (Federico Hidalgo), Remembrance (Stephanie Morgenstern) and Farley Mowat's The Snow Walker (Charles Martin Smith) over 2018-2022.
In 2020, she launched and executive produced Encore+ Originals featuring A-list Canadian talent revisiting iconic past collaborations. Recorded via Zoom during the pandemic and leveraging the YouTube Premiere feature, the initiative fostered discoverability, and deep engagement with global audiences, festivals and archives.
As co-founder and past executive producer of the Women in Film and Television International's Short Film Showcase, Paulina curated three editions of the Showcase, presented in twenty cities across three continents. Featuring award-winning short films directed by women from all continents, it proved extremely popular, serving as a vital advocate for increased gender balance in the global film industry. Prior to this role, she served as Vice-President, Programming and later as President of Women in Film and Television Montréal (Allia).
She has served as a programming specialist for First Person Digital (NFB/Ada X), the 2010 HTMles Festival of Media Art + Digital Culture and 2023 and 2024 editions of the International Film Festival of Ottawa's Save As Symposium: The Future of Restoring, Preserving, Distributing and Exhibiting Heritage Cinema.
At the start of her career, Paulina developed her curatorial competencies serving as founding Artistic Director of a Montreal-based theatre company for over ten years.
She is an alumna of the Media Leadership Program at York University's Schulich School of Business, HEC Montréal, the National Theatre School of Canada, the University of Toronto and the Neil Munro Intern Directors Project at Shaw Festival.