Films & Video

The Meaning of Life

Biographies of Key Personnel

Director: Hugh Brody

Hugh Brody is an author, filmmaker, lecturer and mediator who has been involved for the last 35 years in Aboriginal issues in Canada and internationally. His contributions to seeking change and justice for aboriginal communities began in the1970s with the Land Use and Occupancy studies of northern Canada, and as an expert witness for the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry and the Treaty 8 land claims.  Educated at Oxford and an honorary associate of the Scott Polar Institute, Mr. Brody now holds a Senior Canada Research Chair at the University College of the Fraser Valley, a seven-year appointment by the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada.

He has been a member of a World Bank Review of the Narmada Dam in India, the Director of the Snake River Review in Idaho, and is currently the designer and coordinator of projects in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa on land use and economics of the Hai=kom Bushmen.  

His many publications include nine books, (including Maps and Dreams and The Other Side of Eden ), over fifty essays and 12 documentary films (including The Washing of Tears, Time Immemorial and Inside Australia)

Producer: Betsy Carson

Betsy is a producer/production manager/ director with 19 years experience in documentary film and television.  Among her producing credits are several feature docs including Nettie Wild’s FIX: The Story of an Addicted City (2004 Genie Award), A Place Called Chiapas (1998 Genie Award) and Blockade, Gary Marcuse’s Nuclear Dynamite, and The Mind of A Child(both Gemini winners),  Linda Ohama’s Obaachan’s Garden and Arlene Ami’s Say I Do

(Executive Producer). One-hour documentaries she has worked on include Time Immemorial, Deconstructing Supper, The Lynching of Louie Sam and ARKTIKA :The Russian Dream That Failed. She also is a consultant for many of Vancouver’s documentary filmmakers in the area of budgeting and financing.  In 2006. she produced (with Dan Schlanger) and directed a documentary on ballerina Evelyn Hart for CBC’s Life and Times.   

Recently completed projects include Bevel Up, an educational DVD directed by Nettie Wild for the Street Nurse Program of the BC Centre for Disease Control.  The DVD contains a 45-min documentary and 3 ½ hours of additional teaching material.  Betsy is currently executive producing with Mark Achbar (The Corporation) four theatrical feature documentaries:  Fierce Light, The Cassandra Syndrome, WaterLife and A Short History of Progress, as well as producing Hugh Brody’s new documentary The Meaning of Life.  Also in development with Mark Achbar are five feature docs: The  Fembot Mystique, Sex, Breath and Death, The Perfect Pill, The White Coats are Coming, and Bananas.

Betsy Carson has been member of the Documentary Organization of Canada since 1996 and currently holds the position of Co-Vice Chair.

Editor: Haida Paul

Haida Paul has 30 years of active film & television experience.  She joined the CBC film unit in 1965.  Following this, Haida worked with the United Nations Relief Works Agency in Beirut, Lebanon, filming in the refugee camps.  After returning to Canada, she co-founded Petra Film Production Associates, and established a free-lance relationship as editor and director with the National Film Board of Canada. During this time, Haida also worked with filmmakers from the UK, United States, the Philippines, India, and Vietnam.  She recently completed two documentaries on Vietnamese village extension projects in Tuyen Quang and Yen Bai provinces.

Haida’s filmwork has included a wide variety of editing projects, ranging from films on women’s health issues to designing animation sound tracks. Although known primarily for her documentary editing, Haida also earned recognition as a feature film editor when she was awarded a Genie in l986 for My American Cousin.  Among her most recent credits are The Washing of Tears (with Hugh Brody), The Lynching of Louie Sam and The Life and Times of Evelyn Hart

 

Camera/Sound: Kirk Tougas

With more than 130 productions to his credit, Kirk Tougas is one of Canada’s foremost documentary cinematographers.  Working with independent producers, broadcasters, and the National Film Board, he has shot on location around the world. Films and videos he has worked on have received  over 65 international festival prizes, including Berlin, Leipzig, Toronto, Nyon, Houston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, an International Emmy award, and nine  Canadian Genie and Gemini awards or nominations. In 1999  A Place Called Chiapas directed by Nettie Wild won the International Documentary Award. Three times nominated as Best Documentary Cinematographer by the Canadian Society of Cinematographers, he received this award for A Rustling of Leaves.  

A stalwart of the Canadian documentary community, Mr Tougas has shot all of Nettie Wild’s feature length films, worked with directors such as Sturla Gunnarson (Gerry and Louise: Inernational Emmy award), Hugh Brody, and others too numerous to list here.  His insight, sensistivity and superb technical abilities contribute in a profound way to the quality and depth of any film he participates in.

Sequence

Principals Ian Kirby and Caleb Bouchard provide post-production facilities and expertise to filmmakers and DVD producers, creating everything from visual effects and  graphics design to high-end compositing, SD/HD onlines, colour grading and motion design and DVD authoring.  Working with a wide array of projects ranging from basic masters to more experimental pieces, Sequence has created the finished products for many educational DVDs including The Corporation, Bevel Up and several sociology collections for Face to Face Media.

DBC Sound

Dbc sound inc. is a world class audio post-production facility for feature films, animation, television, documentaries, short films, video games and commercials using the latest technology to produce the highest standards in post audio. Winner of over 15 Genie awards and multiple Gemini and Leo Awards for excellence in sound editing, Dbc sound inc has a reputation for careful and thorough work.

ISUMA

The only aboriginally-owned distribution company in Canada, Igloolik Isuma Productions, Inc. was incorporated in January 1990 as Canada's first Inuit independent production company. Creators of Attanarjuat: The Fast Runner and The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, Isuma also creates and distributes  a wide range of educational DVDs and books.  Isuma’s headquarters are in Igloolik, Nunavut, with a southern office in Montreal and international representation in New York.  Although Isuma does not usually distribute the work of other film producers, Isuma’s long-standing relationship with Hugh Brody in his capacity as a essayist and contributor to many Isuma publications has led to this opportunity for us to work together to distribute The Meaning of Life.

Face to Face Media Ltd / Gary Marcuse and Betsy Carson

Face to Face Media Ltd is an independent production company founded in 1986 that specializes in documentaries for public broadcast and theatrical distribution and educational video collections for use in professional development and in the classroom.  Documentaries include:   The Mind of a Child,  Nuclear Dynamite, Arktika: The Russian Dream That Failed  and Pride and Prejudice.

Educational resource materials include:  Inside Plato’s Cave  (online media literacy course for teachers)  Scanning Television (2 editions of Media Literacy resources for teachers), First Nations,The Circle Unbroken  (with the NFB -  7 volume  collection of resource materials on aboriginal issues for teachers), Pearson Sociology Collection, Think Outside the Book video collection,  Nelson Learning Media Literacy videos  and Alive in the Nuclear Age.