Cents and Sensibility: The Art of the Low-Budget Feature
with Christopher Giroux

⏰ 10:00-12:00 PM ▶ Workshop 📍DARC The Loop

Forget the numbers. The real currency of filmmaking is passion, collaboration, and purpose.

This workshop is for emerging filmmakers ready to turn limited resources into creative freedom. You’ll learn how to reverse-engineer your first feature from story and performance outward - focusing every dollar, every hour, and every ounce of energy on what truly moves an audience.

What separates a cheap film from a cinematic one? Intent. Through candid insight and practical examples, Christopher Giroux breaks down how to maintain high artistic standards, inspire a crew around a shared vision, and make a film that doesn’t feel “low-budget”—because it isn’t built on money, but belief.

Because the best thing money can’t buy… is the team that believes in your story as much as you do.

Christopher Giroux is a Canadian film producer whose career spans multiple genres and more than 50 feature films. A graduate of Sheridan College’s Advanced Television and Film program (2009), Giroux quickly rose through the industry, producing ten back-to-back high-concept films with Black Fawn Films and Breakthrough Entertainment. 

In recent years, he has produced and overseen titles including The Christmas Charade, Christmas Island, Learning to Love Again, Anything For Jackson, Pins & Needles, Please After You, and the 2022 TIFF official selection, The End of Sex. 

Along with producing, Christopher recently directed Uphill for Christmas, slated for 2026 release starring Vanessa Lengis (Glee) Marcus Rosner (Christmas In Maple Hills) and Kate Drummond (Crossroad Springs). Giroux's work has been released worldwide on platforms and networks such as Netflix, Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, UPtv, Paramount+, Super Channel, Showtime, W Network, Crave, Prime Video, Tubi, Roku, BBC, and DIVA.

From 2023 to 2025, Giroux served as Senior Vice President of Production at Vortex Media overseeing 37 films, before returning to independent productions.

Beyond film production, Giroux is a member of the Producer’s Roundtable of Ontario, co-creator of the comic book Doctor Awesome Woman & the president of the Hamilton Film Board. He received a Certified Fresh trophy from Rotten Tomatoes for Anything for Jackson (2020), and earned two Canadian Screen Award nominations in 2023 for Christmas Island and Take Me Back for Christmas.