Bardel Entertainment founder and former CEO Delna Bhesania joins Rezolution Pictures to develop dynamic global brands with engaging stories for international audiences.
Montreal-based indigenous film and television production company Rezolution Pictures has announced that animation veteran Delna Bhesania is joining the company to launch its new animation division.
The two-time Emmy Award-winning producer and founder and former CEO of Bardel Entertainment has an impressive track record, including executive producer roles on many celebrated international hits like Dragon Prince and Rick and Morty.
Bringing a wealth of knowledge and decades of global animation experience to the team, Bhesania has worked with some of the world’s most prominent and prestigious studios including DreamWorks Animation, Warner Bros., Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network/Adult Swim. She is a board member and founder of Drawn Together Vancouver, an industry group that empowers and advances women in the art, technical and business sectors of the animation industry.
Bhesania will work closely with Rezolution Pictures president Archita Ghosh and co-founders Ernest Webb and Catherine Bainbridge, with the mission to bring teams together to develop dynamic global brands with engaging stories for international audiences.
As one of Canada’s most well-established Indigenous production companies, Rezolution is committed to authentic representation and storytelling. By working in a collaborative setting with emerging and experienced talents to bring unique perspectives of story, design and animation to the industry, Bhesania, Ghosh and the Rezolution team will explore Indigenous stories, characters, and world views through their new animation division. A community-facing company with a stellar reputation, Rezolution is in the unique position to offer a depth of research into Indigenous history and culture, as well as access to a variety of funding from Canadian grants and government programs that are in place to help tell these stories.
Bhesania and Ghosh are attending this year’s Annecy Festival and MIFA film market as part of a Telefilm panel, “Innovation Animation Approaches: Doing it Differently in Canada.”
“I am excited and thankful to have the chance to work with Delna — truly an exceptional successful and inspiring woman in animation,” said Ghosh in making the announcement. “Working together with the Rezolution team, we can open up cultural and Indigenous representation to the many different stories just waiting to be told in animation.”
Bhesania added, “I am honored and delighted to be joining Ernest and Catherine and the whole team at Rezolution Pictures. I know that Rezolution has been advancing the narrative when it comes to diversity and representation in the entertainment landscape for over 20 years in documentaries and series and I look forward to working with Archita to do the same in animation. Together, I know we can not only launch the new Animation Division but also take it to an international level.”
With a long history of awards for its productions, Rezolution Pictures most recently picked up 13 Canadian Screen Awards for limited series Little Bird and documentary Coming Home Wanna Icipus Kupi. The Emmy-nominated Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World has won awards at Sundance, Hot Docs and the CSAs and its Gemini- and Peabody-winning Reel Injun has been inducted into the Academy Museum. Its original Indigenous content has been sold around the world in major markets to broadcasters including GEM, APTN, Superchannel, OMNI, TVO, CBC, RDI, ARTV, Télé-Québec, FNX, Vision Maker and internationally with PBS, Peacock, and ARTE.
