KELLY
MICHAEL
STEWART

Kelly Michael Stewart is the Founder and Festival Director of the Blood in the Snow Film Festival (BITS), based in Toronto, Canada. For more than 15 years, Stewart has worked to advance independent Canadian genre cinema — particularly horror, sci-fi, thriller, and action — while building sustainable platforms that support creators, projects, and industry growth.

Stewart began their career as a genre-focused film writer, contributing to outlets such as Fangoria, Toronto Film Scene, Planet Fury, and KISS Monster Magazine in the early 2010s. During this period, they also launched Fright Nights at the Projection Booth, a monthly screening series that ran throughout 2012 and showcased Canadian and international genre shorts and features.

Building on this curatorial and exhibition experience, Stewart founded the Blood in the Snow Film Festival in late 2012 with a clear mandate: to establish a dedicated annual festival focused exclusively on Canadian genre filmmakers. The inaugural edition launched as a weekend event featuring six feature films and a shorts program. Four screenings reached near sell-out capacity, the festival received national media coverage from MTV Canada, and BITS quickly demonstrated its relevance within Canada's film ecosystem.

Alongside the festival's early development, Stewart was actively producing original content. In 2013, they served as lead producer and co-writer on the short film One More for the Road, directed by Navin Ramaswaran. The following year, Stewart co-wrote and produced the horror anthology feature Late Night Double Feature. Both projects screened extensively across North America.

In 2018, the festival expanded into a six-day event at the Royal Cinema and launched the Deadly Exposure Industry Conference, marking a significant strategic shift toward year-round industry development. Deadly Exposure now serves as a key meeting point for Canadian genre filmmakers, producers, broadcasters, funders, and distributors through panels, roundtables, networking events, and market-facing sessions.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Stewart led the festival's transition to a national broadcast model through a partnership with Super Channel, allowing BITS to reach audiences across Canada. The festival returned as a hybrid event in 2021 and 2022.

In 2021, Stewart expanded Deadly Exposure with the launch of the BITS Horror Development Lab, a talent development initiative focused on early-stage genre projects from underrepresented creators, including BIPOC, women, LGBTQ2IA+, and disabled filmmakers. As a polysexual-queer programmer and producer, Stewart brings a lived understanding of structural barriers and representation gaps to this work, shaping programs that prioritize equity, access, and long-term career sustainability. Each year, twelve participants are selected to develop projects through structured workshops, pitch training, and one-on-one mentorship.

Between 2016 and 2018, Stewart created and hosted BITS TV, an interview series highlighting Canadian genre filmmakers that aired for two seasons on Bell TV1. In 2017, BITS launched BITS Radio, a podcast that has produced more than 130 episodes and continues to serve as an archival and promotional platform for Canadian genre creators.

After four years at the Royal Cinema, BITS relocated to the Isabel Bader Theatre in 2022. As of 2025, the festival presents 13 screening programs, including eight feature films and five dedicated short film blocks. Stewart's programming philosophy is grounded in professional rigor, equity, and long-term career impact.