REEL TALK: Rebecca Steele | On Making Space for the Work.
Producer and KIND STRANGER founder on creative producing, global collaboration, and championing a sustainable industry.
Read our full conversation with Rebecca now. Linked in bio.
Stills from Riceboy Sleeps (2022) and Lucky Lu (2025).
#conversation #creativeproducer #film #theproduced
Reel Talk Preview: Producer REBECCA STEELE (@reboritas )
Rebecca Steele is a Vancouver-based producer and founder of the production company, KIND STRANGER (@kindstrangerfilm ). Championing collaboration with visionary filmmakers and bridging international cinemas with KIND STRANGER, Rebecca envisions a diverse constellation of voices and partners for international co-productions. Her projects have traveled across the globe, most notably TIFF, Busan IFF, and Marrakech IFF. She was recently invited to develop the project this year with the EAVE Producers Workshop, and will be heading to Luxembourg this March.
Just a couple of days into 2026, Rebecca and I sat down for a long and warm conversation, piecing together all the parts that have led to her career as a producer. With a capacious and nuanced approach to the role, she reflects on her work behind award-winning films Riceboy Sleeps (2022, dir. Anthony Shim) and Lucky Lu (2025, dir. Lloyd Lee Choi), the quiet challenges of being a creative producer, and everything in between. She also opens up about building her production company, KIND STRANGER—producer of Riceboy Sleeps and post-production service provider on Lucky Lu.
More information coming soon.
Stills 1-3: Rice Boy Sleeps (2022, dir. Anthony Shim)
Stills 4-6: Lucky Lu (2025, dir. Lloyd Lee Choi)
I’m not about to serve a carefully curated slop of images and videos to encompass this past year. Just this one will do at the moment. TOO MUCH LIFE WAS LIVED! Despite the slow pace and inner peace I found on a small Kenyan island, much of this year felt like this (ahem, whatever you call this). The sun is shining, and there is yet more and more to experience and take pleasure in. What a gift 🌹
Perhaps I will post on the grid more regularly in 2026… I’ll give it a go!💋💋💋
Lamu tamu how do I count the ways you showed me love? On hands and fingers, knees and toes? I’ve held on tight to this trip of a lifetime @j.m.pomeroy and I took in late February ✨
How I miss rising before the sun and sitting on the roof looking over the fort wall as frangipani wafts through the warm breeze and blackbirds dance. The slap of sandals of local folk sleepily starting their day, the hee-haw of donkeys and long languid evenings yapping over chai 🌺
In my dreams, I’m still clip clopping down the Croisette, enraptured by the cinematic legacy held by this glittery seaside town…
My first Cannes is one I’ll never forget and I am forever grateful to the wonderfully talented team behind @lloydleechoi ‘s LUCKY LU for making a longtime dream come true ✨
Thank you @lloydleechoi and @teezy319 for trusting me to do what I do to get this film over the finish line 💙
It wouldn’t be without the friendships I have with @mattdrakesound@davidtomiakcolour and @kyleahollett to do something as crazy as finish a film in less than three weeks
Getting to do what you love with the people you love is a privilege like no other. And forming new friendships along the way makes the work all the more valuable.
See you next time Cannes 😎
Having the opportunity to come together as a filmmaking community at a film festival is like no other. To me it feels like coming home to a big family I didn’t know I had. To have your dreams, values, hardships and ambition reflected back to you in complete strangers is a surefire way to extinguish imposter syndrome.
The five days I spent with 70 other producers from around the globe @iffr Rotterdam Lab was no exception. The panels, guests and speakers were all incredible but this cohort on this very special 25th anniversary of Rotterdam Lab is what made it 💫
Thank you @telefilm_canada and @iffr for an experience I’ll never forget 🐯
The top ten things I ate in 2024 🦪
With the world’s many sorrows, inequalities and a genocide knocking on my heart daily, on one hand this post feels incredibly trite. However, in selecting these photos I’m reminded of how the simple pleasures in life are the ones to hold most sacred. An invitation to savour the sensorial. To slow down, to smell, see, share and slurp. How privileged I am to experience such decadent luxuries. How fortunate I am to travel to far corners of the world to enjoy food prepared with such love and kindness. Here’s to long spoons and feeding each other in the most precious ways we can 🌀
1. My very first croissant in Paris
2. The best kebab in Berlin
3. Fresh Dungeness crab caught off the boat
4. BBQ’d oysters @hogislandoysterco
5. A dessert that will forever linger on my tastebuds prepared with joy by @seeyousoon.to
6. Grilled nectarines and burrata at camp
7. The best falafel I’ve ever had in my life, in Paris
8. The entire meal we had at @aupassage but especially the butter
9. The most succulent scallops I’ve ever tasted at @lluritu in Barcalona
10. Where I am happiest, in a farmer’s market
11. Not pictured was the most incredible cheese but what is pictured is proof that food is most enjoyed with friends
🍉🍉🍉 free Palestine
continuously re-learning that when I take time to pause and go slow, the wisdom I’m seeking pools just beneath the surface
the true pace with which I create from requires that liminal space to ponder, to wander, to daydream and to weep. what deep breath is keeping you from the light you seek?
🌀
📷 @devink_film
Still waking from my Berlinale hangover ☁️ A wise soul said to me that when travelling by air, they imagine their body travels faster than their soul and an invisible tether uncoils between them. Jet lag is the time needed for the soul to catch up and return home. I feel my soul has returned home but my heart is still clutching onto this experience.
How can I encapsulate those two weeks into a short post… I won’t try 😌 But I will say it felt like coming home… to a big beautiful film family I didn’t know existed. I hold each of your cinematic visions and dreams with me in my heart.
What a privilege it is to get to do this. To be a filmmaker. To share space in this way with like-minded artists. I think about making films every day and will not waste this precious time we have to create.
Thank you, thank you, thank you @berlinaletalents for not only inviting me into this vivid community but also calling me back to myself 💕
Thank you @telefilm_canada & @creativebcs for all your support
pinch me 🤏🏼 can’t wait to meet the other 201 talents!! see you soon Berlin 👋🏼
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#berlinaletalents #berlinale #berlinaletalents2024 #commontongues #speakingoutinthelanguageofcinema
📷 @gradycmitchell
