ELLA COOPER is an award winning producer, director, writer, multi-media artist, educator and Canadian cultural leader who has been working in the arts, film and cultural sector for over 25 years.
Her creative practice spans broadcast media, photography, writing, textile, and illustration, with recent museum projects supported by the Righteous Person's Foundation.
In film and television, Ella is the founder of Black Women Film! Canada, a nonprofit supporting the development of Black women in film and media, celebrating its 10th anniversary in Spring 2026. She directs children’s content, episodic series, comedy, contemporary dance, music videos, and art documentaries. She was longlisted for a 2023 Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Youth Series and is entering her third season as writer-director of Sunny’s Quest (TVO Kids, produced by Apartment 11).
Ella also leads Brown Rabbit Studios, a boutique BIPOC production company focused on television, lifestyle, arts, and children’s programming, with an animated projects currently in development with CBC Kids, Karen Chapman, and Sphere.
As an episodic director for kids tv, Ella has written directed over 20 episodes of children's television and has shadowed Zoe Hopkins on Season 2 of Run the Burbs (CBC) and Aleysa Young on a Capital One commercial shoot. Her documentary Black Men Loving received Best Canadian Film at Caribbean Tales, and her limited series Dance for Life on Bell Fibe earned an Honorable Mention at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. She has created and directed over 20 short films, including an animation for CBC Books.
As a visual artist, her work has been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Dunlop Gallery, Nuit Blanche, Exposure Festival, and internationally. Her photo series Witness received a 2020 Editor’s Pick in Canadian Art, and her documentary, dance, and video installations have been presented across Canada, the U.S., Europe, and in Vienna (on view through June 2026). She continues to receive support from major arts councils.
A respected cultural leader and speaker, Ella creates transformative leadership programs and masterclasses internationally. She is a recipient of the Tiffany’s Hometown Hero Award, was nominated for the 2019 TAC Mayor’s Arts Award for Cultural Leadership, and was featured in Chatelaine as one of 33 Black Canadians Making Change Now.
Black Women Film! Canada
PHOTOGRAPHY & INSTALLATION
EMBODIED LAND / ECSTATIC RESISTANCE
Ecstatic nude exploration in the Canadian landscape. Exploring themes of Black Joy, reclamation, Canadian national identity and embodies elated resistance.
ECSTATIC NUDES
Reclaiming the Black female nude through embodied elated resistance #BlackJoy
VIDEO INSTALLATION : V-FORMATION
Part of the BODY LAND IDENTITY series : locating the Black female body in the Canadian landscape
NEW COMMUNITY PHOTO SERIES IN DEVELOPMENT : MOTHER BODY ERASURE
Mother Body Erasure Identity : Featured in Lilith Magazine
JOSHUA TREE CALIFORNIA : Landscape Series
'NO SELF' : Butoh Portraits : featuring 4Rude Dance Company
WITNESS : Berlin Photobooth Series : Photo Series : NEW SOLO EXHIBITION ON TOUR feature at Fenster Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery and Jewish Museum of Vienna (2024)
PHOTO SERIES : BODY LAND IDENTITY
Participatory photo video series and workshop exploring representation of the Black female body in Canadian landscape...images coming soon.
UNTITLED : NEW EXPLORATIONS : Berlin Residency
VIDEO COMMISSIONS
DANCE FILM WORKS
(2023) Credit : Director. New dance film documentary commission featuring the Esmeralda Spanish Dance Company and special guests (Jose Donaldo and Caroline Pointe)
Montreal Performance Video Commission : Filmed by Ella Cooper featuring Gerry Trentham, Diane Roberts & Sylvie Bouchard
DANCE FOR LIFE : DANCE FILM DOCUMENTARY Featuring : Pulga Muchochoma
Honorable Mention for 'BEST DOCUMENTARY' San Francisco Dance Film Festival
Official Selection - 2017 Dance Camera West (LA), 2018 Cinedans International Dance Film Festival (Amsterdam), 2018 ReFrame Dance Film Festival, 2017 Dance Made in Canada Festival (Toronto) 2018 World Cinema Festival (Amsterdam) and featured on Metro Morning & Bell Fibe TV.
IMPOSSIBLE LONGING : VIDEO PERFORMANCE ART
Video Installation / Experimental film : Contemplating notions of Blacklessness, land, reclamation and the absurd.
GONE : Dance Film Improvisation :
Credit : Director & DP
Shot in Necropolis, Toronto’s oldest cemetery. This film is part of a series of dance film improvisations Ella created with local dance artists to explore how space and the constraints of time could inform new dance on screen works. The collaboration led to a piece that is reminiscent of Afro spirituals, exploring themes of death, loss and longing.
Exhibited at the Canada Council for the Arts Ajagemo Gallery, Thunder Struck Group Show, curated by Jenn Goodwin
“Ella’s work also reveals how aesthetic practices effectively emphasize the possibility of shifting the colonizing gaze through re-signification and through complex intersections of multiple places, historical temporalities, and subject positions. This work is a relevant reflection of art and humanity in our current age of transitional subjectivities and changeable social realities.”
PHOTO SERIES : KRUMP BATTLE (TUDS TORONTO 2016)
CHILDREN’S CONTENT & illustration
KIKI & KWAME : New Animated Series in development with CBC Kids & Sphere Media - Check out the Brown Rabbit Studios Website for details!
COMMUNITY PROJECTS
Youth dance film workshop & showcase
(2017) Luminato Festival Video Commission featuring Broken Social Scene, musicians from the Arts & Crafts Label and Regent Park School of Music
Black Girls Film Camp
EMERGENCE : Arts & Equity : Toronto Arts Foundation
Award winning Documentary Short
Mark Morris Dance & Regent Park LUMINATO FESTIVAL