Brigitte Kingsley

Brigitte Kingsley is a Canadian actor and producer. She was born on April 12, 1976 in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Her family moved to Whitby, Ontario when she was ten years old. At the age of fourteen, Brigitte Kingsley began her acting career in high school with television commercials such as Oxy, Foot Locker, McDonalds, Head & Shoulders and Radio Shack to name a few. She became the "hostess with the mostess" on the television series Game Nation for 4 seasons as host Suki Diefenbaker. She studied theatre and psychology at York University. Shortly after graduating with Honours from York University with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Studies, Brigitte Kingsley launched her production company Defiant Empire Corporation with business partner Andrew Cymek. She produced a series of short films, corporate videos and commercials before producing her first feature film Dark Rising in 2006 starring wrestling superstar Jay "Christian Cage" Reso. The low-budget indie feature was released through Universal Vivendi in 2007 and nominated for 6 Canadian Comedy Awards in 2008 for Best Writing, Directing, Male Performance and Best Female Performance, which Brigitte earned for her role as the lead character "Summer Vale". It was later released in the US and internationally through EOne and subsequently expanded into a sequel Dark Rising 2: Summer Strikes Back! and the television series The Savage Tales of Summer Vale both released in 2011 on Super Channel and acquired by Cinemavault for International sales and by MarVista for the US. In 2008, Brigitte Kingsley became president of Black Walk, a production company that is best known for their clever comedic features including the 2005 TIFF Favorite and Independent Spirit Award Winner Phil the Alien. In 2010, she completed her third feature film Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf, an action-thriller starring John Rhys Davies (Lord of the Rings), William B. Davies (X-Files), which was released through Anchor Bay Canada, US, UK and Australia. In 2011, she took on the responsibility of Decade Distribution in order to increase her knowledge in the sales and distribution side of film and also produced her first Telefilm supported feature film "Two Hands to Mouth" - an official selection of the Madrid International Film Festival. In 2012, she was nominated for another Canadian Comedy Award for her role as Summer Vale in Dark Rising 2: Summer Strikes Back! and starred and co-executive produced the fourth Dark Rising project: Warrior of Worlds (also starring Colin Mochrie, Peter Outerbridge and Scott Thompson). In September 2012, Brigitte left Black Walk to start her own production company Good Soldier Films with partner Andrew Cymek. Their films include Night Cries, which won best screenplay at the Blood in the Snow Film Festival, The Man in the Shadows that played at Dances with Films and Cinefest and the country musical Country Crush starring Jana Kramer, Madeline Merlo and Sophie Tweed-Simmons acquired by SHOUT! Factory in the US and winner of Best Narrative Feature, Best of the Festival Film and Audience Choice at the Desert Rocks Films and Music Festival in Hesperia, CA. Brigitte Kingsley is on the Board of directors for Canadore College's Television/Video Production and Digital Cinematography program and is behind the "Good Soldier" initiative, a charitable cause supporting soldiers.