Tracey Friesen, a longtime Canadian TV producer and media strategist, has died. She was 58.
Friesen died Monday in Vancouver after receiving a cancer diagnosis in September 2024, the Whistler Film Festival, where she had been a board member, announced on its website. Whistler Fest executive director Angela Heck added in a statement: It is a personal and professional loss that reverberates through our community now. Her positive energy and decisive, thoughtful demeanor could cut to the heart of an issue with precision, clarity and kindness. Her mischievous blue eyes and sparkle are remembered with fondness. Our thoughts are with her loved ones. She will be missed.”
Tributes for Friesen poured in from the British Columbia film community. “Tracey’s passing is an immense loss. A cherished friend and devoted colleague, her work made an incredible contribution to both our efforts and the cultural fabric of the motion picture industry,” Prem Gill, CEO of Creative B.C., who markets the Canadian province to Hollywood producers and worked with Friesen, said in her own statement.
Friesen for the last five years was managing vice president of the B.C. branch at the Canadian Media Producers Association, representing indie producers in Canada. “Tracey was a bright light for our organization. She was relentless in her belief in the power of media to drive positive social change, and as a leader, her optimism was truly infectious. She cared deeply about people and about the planet,” Reynolds Mastin, president and CEO of the CMPA, said in a statement.
Born in central British Columbia and raised in Deep Cove, a suburb of Vancouver, Friesen completed a radio and television degree at Ryerson University in Toronto, before doing an undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and an MBA at nearby Simon Fraser University.
After an entry level job at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. working on The Journal, a newsmagazine series, Friesen joined Rainmaker Digital Effects in Vancouver as a visual effects producer and later as a director of sales and industry relations.
She then worked at the National Film Board of Canada, the country’s public filmmaker, as an executive producer for 12 years until 2013, where she shepherded documentary, animation and interactive media projects. Her NFB credits included Being Caribou, Scared Sacred and Shameless: The ART of Disability.
In 2014, Friesen joined Vancouver’s Roundhouse Radio as Director of Programming, before becoming director of communications at the David Suzuki Foundation until 2019.
In 2013, Women in Film & Television (WIFT) Vancouver honored Friesen as a Woman of the Year. She also wrote the 2016 book Story Money Impact: Funding Media for Social Change, a practical guide indie content producers and funders.
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