ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sivana Vythilingum (Vy-tea-lingum) (b.1985) is a Toronto-based independent writer, producer, and visual artist. Over the past eighteen years, she has merged her love of filmmaking, and journalism with marketing as an independent communications consultant in Canada and the United States. After her internship as an associate producer at CBC ‘The National’ in 2008, where she covered the U.S Presidential election, witnessing President Obama win in Grant Park, Chicago and the Federal election of Canada, she spent the next decade gaining diverse experiences in communications, working in various industries in media, food, consumer packaged goods, public relations and broadcasting. First, as a television script analyst for television commercials at the Television Bureau of Canada, she advised Canadian broadcasters and marketing agencies on advertising standards as well as approving licenses for broadcast.

 

Later, she spent several years as a multimedia producer at Canada Newswire, producing press conferences, public and consumer relations branded videos, and building media websites for fortune 500 companies before and after their IPO.

 

As a communications strategist, she has managed several national cause marketing campaigns for companies, bringing awareness to childhood cancer in the United States as well as spotlighting child hunger in Canada.

 

In 2013, she was independently commissioned for her first environmentally-focused film by Kruger Products for their 100% recycled paper products line, EnviroCare before starting her own consulting firm, Tikiri, (Tee-Key-Ri which means circle in ancient Tamil) in 2015.

 

Her second branded short documentary, The Mill, a short film on how a Canadian company helped save a 100-year old mill from shutting down and revitalized a neighbourhood in Memphis, Tennessee, was published globally at the 4th U.S Manufacturing Summit by Walmart International as part of their “Made in USA” series in 2016.

 

Her goal as a storyteller and artist is to influence people in using positive philosophy, all forms of Ayurvedic medicine, and art for processing trauma in hopes of mitigating violence and producing a healthier society. She is passionate about creating conversations that help identify and break our own limited consciousness on social issues surrounding inequality, liberation and resistance movements, relationships, third culture identities, aesthetics as well as alternative sustainable lifestyles.

 

As a creative producer, she is looking to collaborate with a company and individuals that are not only progressive in expanding consciousness in culture but also who strive to be an industry-leader in equitable, sustainable, and healthy business practices and products.

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Sivana has won several awards as a filmmaker and writer. Most notably, in 2015, she won the Green Pitch award at the Planet In Focus International Film Festival for her documentary, Prey, which focuses on Canadian wildlife conflict and co-existence. In 2019, she received the first academic writing prize award for creative writing from the Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York University for her personal essay on immigration, third-culture identities, class, gender, and personal growth.

 

She is a broadcast journalism graduate from the School of Communication Arts at Seneca College, and a graduate of the Independent Producer Entrepreneurship Film Program from Centennial College. She has graduated from an Honours Bachelor of Arts at York University in Toronto, Canada.  She is currently doing a Master's of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies specializing in Philosophy, Law and Medicine, connducting academic research in health law medicine, colonialism, decolonialism, philosophy of mind and women's agency.

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​She is of South Indian/Asian indigenous ancestry and a fifth-generation Tamil African, born and raised on the East-African island of Mauritius. She is also a naturalized Canadian, after immigrating to Toronto in the late 90s during her early teens. She considers herself a polytheist, and someone with multiple cultural identities after having grown up in a pluralistic society in Mauritius and Canada. She is fluent in several African, Asian and European languages.

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She has developed various types of scripts and creative stories as well as currently wriiting her first academic book focusing on  themes surrounding human existentialism, colonization, race, gender, political corruption, corporate terrorism, often featuring voices that are often not heard or seen in mainstream media.

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The goal is to develop stories and initiatives to break some of the stereotypes, myths, misunderstanding about Asian/African islanders and East/West Indies and its diaspora especially those with indentured labour background, vedic caste system, various mix of faiths communities who are isolated and often heavily experimented on due to the current colonialist healthcare system.

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*Stories are in various genres from horror, to drama, to action/superhero and to comedy, all with developed storylines, character development and production in various accessible mediums. 

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