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Omar Majeed
Editor

Omar Majeed is a Pakistani-Canadian writer, editor and filmmaker.  His directing credits include feature length documentaries Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam and The Frog Princes (EyeSteelFilm) and the three-part digital series The Divine Oneness (CTV/Bell Media).  Taqwacore was included in SPIN magazine’s top ten list of 2009 Music documentaries, and received the World Documentary award from the Harlem International Film Festival.  His work has screen all over the world including premieres at SXSW, IDFA and Hot Docs.   In 2012, he was a a recipient of the NFB/Kathleen Shannon Award for work profiling subjects ‘outside the dominant culture’ and in 2017 he was a finalist for the Ontario Arts Council’s KM Hunter Artist Award.
As an editor, Omar has worked with many established documentary filmmakers including Yung Chang (The Fruit Hunters), Mia Donovan (Inside Lara Roxx) and Daniel Cross (Atanasoff: Father of the Computer).  In 2001, he was awarded a CSA (née Gemini) for Best Editing for his work on the groundbreaking program, QueerTelevision.
Although he’s called many cities home including Montreal, Baltimore and Lahore, Omar currently resides in Toronto with his wife and young child.  He’s currently editing The Artists – a ten-part digital series and feature-length documentary (CBS, Topic) by director Peter Mishara – profiling the early pioneers of video game design.

Peter Mishara
Writer / Director

Peter Mishara is a child of the 80s, hailing from the Upper East Side of New York City. He remembers a time before the digital age, but just barely. This informs his visual work, where he blends the immediacy and simplicity of digital with the warmth and soul of analog. He is a graduate of the film programs at Temple University and the University of Southern California, where he honed his visual style and storytelling techniques. In Los Angeles, after working several years as a cinematographer, he served as Head of Production, Film & Video for Marc Ecko Enterprises, a full-scale global fashion and youth-oriented lifestyle company. It was at MEE Peter ended up directing over 50 broadcast commercials for their various brands and spearheaded various video initiatives. In 2010, he set up roots in Toronto and directed and creative directed digital spots for brands such as BMW, Mozilla and Kraft. In addition to directing a pilot project on e-sports for VICE, and creative directing a VR/AR game for kids called Terracosm, Peter also wrote and directed a short science fiction film entitled SPRNVA (Supernova). In late 2016, he began directing The Artists, a 10-part documentary webseries and feature film about the pioneers of the burgeoning video game industry, which recently launched on Topic, the new venture from First Look Media.

Episode I: Seeing Farther
How Electronic Arts (Re)defined the Artist

Meet the group of rogue programmers who, in the 1980s, decided to elevate computer games to an art form.

Watch on Topic (US Only)

 

Episode II: The Revo’n will be Digitized
The Rise & Fall of Gaming’s First Dynasty

Pong took computer games out of the lab and into the dive bar. Here’s how the runaway success of Atari’s first game led to the company’s eventual downfall.

Episode III: The Dragon Slayer
Chris Crawford’s Never Ending Quest to Slay his Dragon

Though his industry was becoming increasingly concerned with the bottom line, Chris Crawford understood that video games could revolutionize storytelling.

Episode IV: The Doom Generation
The Birth of the First Person Shooter

Doom was a fast-paced and immersive first-person shooter game whose success was the envy of the industry.

Episode V: Wordsmiths
Zork and the Worlds of Text-Based Adventuring

Before video games could get graphic, text-based adventures imagined the future of literature.

Episode VI: One More Turn
How Civilization Shows Us who Who We Really Are

The history-inspired Civilization games say less about the past than they do about what’s next.

Episode VII: Come Together
The Life & Times of Dani Bunten-Berry

For one programmer, the future of gaming was about more than art. It was a social issue.

Episode VIII: Searching for Shangri-La
LucasArts’ Legacy of Blurring the Lines Between Film & Gaming

Extending his empire to the small screen, George Lucas built a video-game incubator on his own ranch.

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