KJELL BOERSMA
Kjell Boersma was born in Ontario. As a graduate of Ryerson University's Film Studies program, Kjell has since worked on broadcast animation and feature documentaries, as well as a plethora of music videos and experimental modern dance films. In 2010 he abandoned Toronto for New Mexico, settling in Gallup: a small but bustling frontier town on the border of the Navajo Nation. While in Gallup, Kjell collaborated with National Geographic Photographer Adriel Heisey, shooting aerial video for the United States National Park Service, as well as a variety of archaeologists, environmentalists, and documentary filmmakers. Over the next four years, Kjell worked with local artists and cultural organizations to co-found the arts council gallupARTS, and he directed his most recent film, MONSTER SLAYER, a contemporary retelling of the Navajo story of the Hero Twins featuring an all Navajo cast and stop-motion animated monsters in the style of Ray Harryhausen. Kjell is now a filmmaker and animator residing in the concrete forest of Toronto, Canada, where he lives with two cats and one human.
DAM! The Story of Kit the Beaver was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the film’s score was recorded live with the TSO in February of 2017 at Roy Thomson Hall, funded by the government of Canada. It was produced with Seneca College, working directly with select students from their Summer Animation Institute.