Dominika Juillet: FOUNDER/CEO
Provoke was created to have a rotating series of guest producers; supporting team came from 41 Ocean (Jeremy Umland) and ASW (A Small World) partnerships.
Dominika Juillet was raised by parents from two very different households; her great-grandmother was a Baroness on mother’s side and her father came from a country family with a long history of Horticulture (bees and trees). The mix of both social classes, their resulting heated debates and discussions about life, music, politics and the things that both distinguished them and more critically, were shared human experiences.. this was the founding philosophy that influenced Dominika’s childhood. Philosopher Immanuel Kant postured that culture evolves not from reiterating similar views but from the “dialectical unity of opposites” and in arts and sciences, we have seen proof that this formula (mixing artists with scientists, pragmatists with dreamers, the street view with the penthouse view) - these are the environments in which true enlightenment, innovation and compassion happens.
Dominika arrived in Canada as a child, suddenly and for the first six months, struggled with the feat or learning English at the same time as her immigrant parents. Her determination and love for words helped her catch up quickly and she was soon winning creative writing awards and writing “mini novels”. She read philosophy books voraciously and travelled extensively through high school; she was on the student counsel, a peer counsellor, a mathlete and awarded by the EUC educational fund with a trip to Thailand and Hong Kong when she was 16 for an essay she wrote. She was drafted for the Canadian Olympic volleyball team when she was 15 and screened by Yale for their track and field team in her graduating year. Dominika oscillated between wanting to be a foreign correspondent, her love of sports and an affinity for theatre.
Dominika started acting in film almost by accident because of actress Rosanna Arquette. She had ended up on a film set as a guest of a friend in production and found herself being asked to take on a role by request of the famous Hollywood actress and French director. She enjoyed the experience so much, she began auditioning while finishing her university education. She booked a guest star role opposite Jessica Alba her third film audition out but was generally unhappy with the types of roles being written for girls and women. She was told it was better to “choose one thing” (acting or writing) and yet, 5 years later, she would be awarded a CBC mini series for a pilot she wrote and starred in called “Under the Cover”; over 140,000 projects had been submitted to the nation-wide contest.
Dominika has continued acting and creating content between commercial and network projects; landing in LA, she started booking work with Jason Statham, director Roland Joffe and attempting to find ways to socialize in a way that was more meaningful than just random networking. She was an ambassador for Zero South, a unique environmental project that involved taking a Hummer converted to an electric vehicle and driving with Buzz Aldrin across the south pole. She became an advisor to Global Green. When an unexpected health issue grounded her for two years, she spent the time writing content with the plans of redirecting some of her creative enthusiasm towards issues and subjects which mattered to her. Her passionate enthusiasm at Hollywood Hill was noted and many people suggested she should do a younger, fun version of the event.
Provoke was born in a time when it became obvious IG and FB allowed for actors to transition their spotlight into platforms in a way that could illuminate issues and subjects important to them. The term “influencer” was not inspiring to Dominika and she opted out of representation with a bigger agency under this title (yes, this was stupid, we know that now:). Since then, Dominika’s work has involved more film roles and a unique collaboration with artist Alexa Meade to reinvent the classic pinup girl.
In 2020, during the pandemic, the world was looking to the USA and its next election; issues surrounding race, gender, lgbtq rights and the environment were at the forefront of those under fire. The “beauty for the vote” campaign was designed to take stock of an IG generation (impacting on creative’s work and self presentation in a pervasive way): we all take selfies, why not instead “give back” our spotlight to the important milestone that is election 2020?