Biography
Sonetta Duncan (born: Stephanie Nicole Duncan) is a Scottish-Canadian filmmaker, actress, and author based out of Toronto, Ontario. She was raised in Aurora, Ontario.
A lover of tradition, philosophy, and art, Sonetta has always claimed to be a seeker of truth. Her first true loves were theatre and literature; performing since the age of six, and a self-taught author of poetry and prose shortly thereafter. With a keen motivation to make a difference in the world, cinema was an obvious choice for her to realize her destiny. Believing deeply in art's power to change the world, she pursued her passion for cinema in post-secondary, graduating from York University's BFA of Film Production ('16) and anticipated graduate of the University of Windsor's MFA in Film and Media Arts ('25).
In 2015, she was commissioned by the Chinese government to produce a short documentary on the art of tea and music. Between 2017-2018, she worked with Telefilm Canada for 2 years on an unproduced feature, Diaspora. Since 2014, she has worked in corporate videography for institutions such as York University and the University of Toronto. While her main passions lie in writing, directing, acting and editing, she also works as a producer, cinematographer, and assistant director. In her spare time, she enjoys painting and dabbling in animation.
Her work explores the human condition through an experimental and philosophical lens. She is influenced significantly by international, independent, art house and cult cinema, drawing inspiration from the New Wave and affiliated movements. She often combines mixed-media to properly convey her themes and messages in unique and abstract ways. She is an old-school cinema buff and often shoots on film, personally hand-processing and digitizing the footage to deepen her connection with the work. She believes that artists are vessels and that art should be offered space to breathe and become that which it is meant to.
