CENTRE FOR TEACHING
EXCELLENCE & INNOVATION

Toronto Film School Celebrates Inaugural Recipient of the President’s Award for Teaching Excellence

TFS President Andrew Barnsley beside TFS Instructor Bruno Lyra holding his inaugural President's Award for Teaching Excellence.

We at The Centre are so excited and proud to boost the signal of the Toronto Film School (TFS) President’s Award for Teaching Excellence!

TFS’s newly launched President’s Award for Teaching Excellence was presented to Film Production instructor Bruno Lyra, who, in addition to teaching Copyright/Contracts in Film and Film Financing, was also just named Director of TFS Student Strategy.

A former corporate tax lawyer who decided to pursue his passion for filmmaking in 2017, Lyra took his opportunity at the podium to thank all the graduates in attendance for “being so inspiring.”

“I know viscerally how daunting a creative career can be, and I got a front row seat to how much passion, how much grit, how much moral fibre each and every one of you put into your dreams,” he said in his acceptance speech.

“I want to say that it truly is the honour of a lifetime to play even the smallest part in your stories.”

Read the full TFS article on the 2024 TFS Convocation for more information and stories of the day!

Matthew Dunleavy wearing a pink and purple polka-dot shirt under a grey blazer with red-framed glasses and a long reddish-brown beard smiling into the camera
Matthew Dunleavy

Senior Educational Developer, Faculty Excellence and Development

[email protected] 

Matthew Dunleavy (he/him) is an educational developer and scholarly teacher with over 9+ years’ experience. He immediately joins our CTEI from York University where he was an Educational Developer with the Teaching Commons; before entering that role, he served as the Program Director of the Online Learning and Technology Consultants (OLTC) Program at the Maple League of Universities (Acadia University; Bishop’s University; Mount Allison University; and St. Francis Xavier University). In 2022, he was awarded the D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) for this work.