About
Fabienne Colas, founder
Fabienne Colas is an entrepreneur, director, award-winning actor, and speaker who gives her heart and soul to support and promote on- and off-screen diversity around the world. She won Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women Award in 2019, was named Canada’s Top 40 under 40 and Culture Personality of the Year by La Presse, both in 2018, and winner of the 2019 Prix Relève Femme d’exception (Les Mercuriades), awarded by the Fédération des chambres de commerces du Québec.
As the Queen of festivals, she has created and managed 12 successful festivals in Montreal, Toronto, New York, Halifax, Port-au-Prince, and Salvador (Bahia, Brazil), including the Montreal International Black Film Festival, the largest festival of its kind in Canada, and the extremely popular Toronto Black Film Festival.
Over the years, these festivals have welcomed more than 2 million participants and supported more than 5,000 artists, including Harry Belafonte, Spike Lee, Stedman Graham, Danny Glover, Martin Luther King III, Dany Laferrière, Euzhan Palcy, Isaach de Bankolé, Wyclef Jean, and P.K. Subban.
Colas’s mission is to continue creating platforms to showcase a diversity of voices, faces, and points of view. Through the Fabienne Colas Foundation, she supports, grants scholarships to, and promotes independent films and artists that, otherwise, would remain invisible.
In 2015, Fabienne Colas received the National Assembly of Quebec medal in recognition for her leadership and contribution to the fight against racism and discrimination in Quebec. As CEO of Zaza Production, she served on the Society for the Celebration of Montréal’s 375th anniversary board of directors.
She holds an executive MBA from McGill University and HEC Montreal.
More information at www.fabiennecolas.com