AXT: Behind the Screen – This Place (Private Event)

Saturday, March 28, 2026 | 6:30 PM | Downtown Toronto

Access Threshold is pleased to announce our next AXT Behind the Screen screening event, and we’re celebrating Women’s History Month in a truly special way.

About the Event

AXT Behind the Screen isn’t your typical screening and Q&A. It brings together industry leaders and brilliant emerging creatives for open exchange and collaboration. Designed as both an experience and a dialogue, it briefly bridges the distance between creatives, industry, and audience, offering an immersive, interactive approach to learning while celebrating our shared love of film.

Each AXT Behind the Screen event blends:

• The engagement of a Q&A
• The intimacy of a fireside chat
• The collaborative spark of a roundtable
• A moderated dialogue shaped around a specific industry perspective

The Film: This Place

On Saturday, March 28th, AXT Behind the Screen is proud to screen THIS PLACE, a beautiful coming-of-adulthood love story co-written and directed by V.T. Nayani.

THIS PLACE follows the emerging love between two young women, complicated by their families’ histories, which bear the legacies of loss, migration and displacement. The film celebrated its World Premiere at TIFF in 2022 and marks Nayani’s feature-length directorial debut.

Co-written by Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs (Echo, Reservation Dogs; The Order; American Gods), V.T. Nayani (Shadeism: Digging Deeper; The Love We Made; Disclosure), and first-time screenwriter Golshan Abdmoulaie, THIS PLACE is a multi-generational exploration of coming-to-adulthood, with stories from Indigenous and diasporic communities at the centre. With Devery Jacobs leading the cast and Stephanie Sonny Hooker producing, the team behind this film is an inclusive group of artists and technicians committed to supporting access to the cinema landscape and centring stories from the margins.

Almost every department head and key position, including the entire cast and all executive producers, identify as Black, Indigenous, or a person of colour, the majority of whom are women-identified and many of whom are queer.

The Director: V.T. Nayani

V.T. Nayani is a recent alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Lab (’21), the Canadian Academy of Cinema and Television’s Directors Program for Women (’22), and BIPOC TV and Film’s Showrunner Bootcamp (’22). She is also an alumnus of BlackStar Film Festival’s William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar, Reelworld Film Festival’s Emerging 20 Program, Hot Docs’ Doc Accelerator, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Workshop for Diverse Creators.

The Q&A and Workshop

This intimate community screening will be followed by a screenwriting-focused interactive Q&A with the film’s director and co-writer V.T. Nayani, and an immersive workshop led by Access Threshold co-founders Keda Edwards Pierre and Carolyn Mauricette, giving attendees practical screenwriting insights and key takeaways to apply to their own creative journeys.

Why Attend AXT Behind the Screen?

AXT Behind the Screen is a space where real conversations happen, where emerging creatives get direct access to industry trailblazers, and where the love of film becomes a catalyst for connection and growth. This Women’s History Month edition is a celebration of Indigenous and diasporic storytelling, a deep dive into the craft of screenwriting, and a community experience all in one evening.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Event Details

• Date: Saturday, March 28, 2026
• Time: 6:30 PM
• Location: Downtown Toronto (location confirmed after RSVP)
• RSVP to secure your spot