2026 UP NEXT! Pitch Competition Finalists  

Bulut (Blue) is a left-handed, Turkish-Canadian writer, director, and producer by profession and a stand-up comedian by compulsion. Every Halloween, he blesses his audience with the sight of a Turkish man in a full turkey costume delivering deadpan Thanksgiving jokes. When he’s not entertaining Canadians with performance art, he’s focused on his career in film and television. He holds a Film Production degree from York University, where he studied on a talent scholarship, and a post-graduate diploma in Film and Television – Business from Centennial College. With a strong foundation in creative storytelling and a solid grasp of the business side of the Canadian media industry, Bulut (Blue) has collected a number of festival awards, none of which paid the rent, but all of which gave him great storytelling skills. His work blends absurdity, philosophy, and dark comedy into what he proudly defines as his own genre: existential humour.

Gabriela Salon is a Venezuelan-born Toronto-based video producer turned comedian. She currently performs stand-up, improv and sketch comedy in both English and Spanish at popular venues like Comedy Bar, Yuk Yuk’s, Rivoli and more throughout Toronto. In 2025, Gabriela performed at Massey Hall’s Comedy Extravaganza with Canadian Icon Comedy Legend Colin Mochrie. She is a recent graduate from the Comedy Writing and Performing Program at Humber Polytechnic, where she was awarded the Jo-Anna Downey Comedy Scholarship. Under the mentorship of Martha Chaves, Gabriela has quickly built the foundation of a career in the comedy scene. Furthermore, Gabriela was the opener for Spanish Celebrity comedians Stephan Dyer and Juan Cajiao in their Quebec Tour this spring.

Jagjiwan Sohal is an award-winning South Asian screenwriter and author celebrated for his range, emotional depth, and singular voice. Winner of the 2025 WGC Comedy Award for “The Turban” of the LATE BLOOMER series, his work spans acclaimed children’s programming such as DINO DANA and dark, psychologically driven features including ONE BEDROOM. Now, with REFUGE, he explores what happens when two strangers are forced into unexpected intimacy over the course of a single day, uncovering the painful truths and hidden vulnerabilities that neither can outrun.

Paulette Shnier has a decade of experience as a 3D artist with a myriad of different projects under her belt. She worked on high concept features at Tangent animation with credits include modelling, rigging and supervising the shot finalling department for projects such as Ozzy, Next Gen and Maya and The Three. After Tangent closed its doors, she began working at Ape Squared Creative, where she taught herself python in order to take on the role of CG Supervisor and build tools to facilitate an efficient workflow. Her experience in multiple roles across different productions has given her a deep understanding of what goes into creating outstanding animated projects. Her most recent credit is on Apogee of the Vulpine Borrow, an experimental short film which she was a producer and co-creator on.

Youssef Masri rage-quit his mechanical engineering job back home in Lebanon to become a “writer”. But he didn’t think he was good enough back then, so he rage quit his stable, six figures, full insurance, first class retirement plan, mom-approved, totally existing in Lebanon, “writing job” to pursue stand-up comedy! Yay! Life happened and he moved to Toronto, and continued doing stand-up, until he found that the sound of people laughing and enjoying themselves has been bothering him too much. So he rage-quit stand-up comedy and went back to his original passion: Sitting down! And what’s the best thing to do while sitting down? Writing! Sorry, “Writing!”. He went to “Film School”, and now he’s got a short film called The Moron doing a festival run, which is actually the best short film that I, the writer of this, Joseph Europa, have ever seen. Since graduating, he’s been “working” as a freelance writer and story editor for the past three years, with multiple projects in development and one in production. In conclusion, I, Joseph Europa, unbiased observer, think that Youssef is very much due for his shot. Like…Come on!!! Otherwise, he’s fully prepared to rage-quit comedy and pursue his back-up life passions which include but are not limited to: Writing sad stuff, Improv, professional other people Bio writing, baking, people pleasing, or noticing and yelling out cloud shapes.