Connecting event planning and producing Oscar-nominated films
Pannia has enjoyed great success as a film producer. Two films he worked on were nominated for Academy Awards in 2022: Bestia (best animated short film) about the life of a secret police agent during the Chilean military dictatorship, and Ala Kachuu – Take and Run (best live-action short film) that tells the story of a Kyrgyz woman experiencing the tradition of bride kidnapping.
"What I learned at George Brown is that planning an event is almost identical to producing a film,” he explained. “You have the outline of what you need. You need to physically find it, and you need to make a schedule of how you're going to get everything, like a run of show. Planning a film is like planning a month-long event.”