Alison Duke

Bio

Alison Duke, Co-founder of OYA Media Group, is a multifaceted Canadian Screen award-winning talent.

Alison produced and co-wrote Mr. Jane and Finch, the CBC POV television documentary about Winston LaRose, an 80-year-old activist named. The film won two 2020 Canadian Screen Awards – The Donald Brittain Award for best social-political documentary and best documentary writing. The same year Alison directed Cool Black North, a 2-hour television documentary special for City TV, which went on to screen in over a dozen US film festivals and is now available on Rogers on Demand and Apple TV.

Alison made her dramatic debut with the powerful short film Promise Me, which has now been screened at over 30 festivals and earned numerous awards, including two Golden Sheafs for best direction and best-scripted for fiction in the 2021 Yorkton film festival. She then directed The Prescription episode for Obsidian Theater’s 21 Black Futures series on CBC Gem to fantastic reviews.

In 2021, Alison helmed a Heritage Minute spot for Historica Canada about Chloe Cooley, which has gone viral since premiering in February 2022. In doing so, she became the first Black woman to direct a Heritage Minute.

Alison exec produced Blue Ant Media’s 3-part docu-series Evil By Design: Surviving Nygard for CBC Docs, which earned her a Canadian Screen Award Nomination for Best History Documentary or Series in 2023. She’s currently in post on a feature music doc she directed, Bam Bam: The Story of Sister Nancy for CRAVE. And she recently wrapped her doc series Black Community Mixtapes which she produced and directed with Ngardy Conteh-George. Over her career, she has produced and directed works that have also aired on numerous networks and streaming services such as Netflix, ITVS, Sundance Channel, Superchannel, BET, Much Music, and TVO.

Always one to give back, she co-founded the OYA Emerging Filmmakers program, a 5-year initiative to accelerate the careers of Black youth who are graduates of post-secondary film, video and digital media programs in the Canadian entertainment industry. Being Black in Toronto, a series produced in this program, won the 2021 Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Documentary Series.