Canamedia has, over the past three decades, boasted a number of highlights.

The Toronto distribution and production company, launched 30 years ago, scored one of Canadian TV’s first sales to U.S. network primetime with 1981’s Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper, which aired on CBS. The MOW recounts how Canadian ambassador to Tehran Ken Taylor (Gordon Pinsent) helped U.S. diplomats escape from Iran during the 1979 revolution. It was a pivotal moment for company founders Les Harris (one of the movie’s producers) and Jane Harris, his wife.

In 1984/85, Canamedia president and CEO Harris produced the MOW The King of Friday Night for CBC and BBC. The musical – a ‘rock-video drama’ starring Eric Peterson as an old time rock ‘n’ roll star – won seven international awards, including a Rockie at the Banff World Television Festival. Ivan Fecan, today president and CEO of CTVglobemedia, and formerly with CBC, tells Playback that the project ‘was way ahead of its time and would still play beautifully today.’

In 1986, Canamedia’s feature doc 444 Days to Freedom: What Really Happened in Iran was presold to Global, PBS’ Frontline, BBC, NOS (Holland) and IBA (Israel). Harris, ever-passionate about the doc form, wrote, directed, edited and produced it.

Three years later, Harris produced, directed and edited the doc Padre Pablo: Fighter for Justice, about a Catholic missionary in Latin America.

One of the reasons Canamedia is still in business is its expansion through diversification. It has become a significant distributor of international films and TV programs, with a focus on docu-series and lifestyle programming. It also is the Canadian rep for the stock footage libraries of Natural History New Zealand and the substantial ITN source archives, which includes 700,000 hours of news footage from Reuters and Fox Movietone News. The company has also added audio to its stock offerings, repping the U.S.’s Pump Audio, which allows producers to tap into indie-produced original music.

Long before all these developments, though, there was a short film about blowing up the BBC.

Harris, an editor by training at the Beeb in the late 1960s, had yearned to be a director and made his first film there, a 10-minute doc entitled How to Blow Up the BBC – its title an accurate reflection of the film’s content. Such was the efficacy of its narrative that Harris, who clearly enjoys retelling the tale, was brought in for questioning by MI5 and BBC security.

‘Their very first question was, ‘Who’s your father?” Harris recalls, to which he responded, ‘My father is Harry Harris, and he’s Irish.’ Given that the IRA had been setting off bombs in England, this did not sit well with officials, who confiscated the film.

‘Luckily I had a second copy and the negative,’ Harris adds. He explains that he made the film not because he wanted to actually blow up the pubcaster, but rather because ‘you should make films about something that you know very well,’ and he knew his way around the BBC.

Although Harris wasn’t fired for his first cinematic effort, he was subsequently passed over for a promised shot at directing again, so he quit and went to work for caster London Weekend Television, where he directed a film about drag racing.

In 1976, Harris was invited to Canada by the CBC to direct Country Canada, where he convinced the network the best way to make docs about rural Canada was to get out of the studio and out into the field, literally.

In 1978, he became senior field producer for CTV’s W5. When the news first broke about Canadian diplomats smuggling six Americans out of Iran, Harris correctly deduced that the official version of their escape wasn’t true. So, at the time he started Canamedia, he pitched CTV president Murray Chercover on the idea of uncovering the truth.

Harris recalls Chercover replying, ‘You’ve got balls,’ then writing a cheque for $20,000 on the spot to launch the project. ‘He then said, ‘If this comes off, I want it for CTV.”

For his part, Chercover remembers that Harris ‘presented me with all of the facts of the situation that I had not been fully aware of.’ He was convinced the ‘Canadian caper’ would make great programming.

As it turns out, Escape from Iran: The Inside Story ended up on CBC instead. The doc formed the basis for Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper, which broke Harris and Canamedia into U.S. television.

As for Chercover’s $20,000 contribution, which made it all possible? Harris presented him with a ‘souvenir rug with Ayatollah Khomeini on it,’ Chercover recalls, laughing. ‘I still don’t know what to do with it.’

With his wife Jane, the company’s executive producer, Harris built Canamedia into a major production and distribution house. For tax reasons, there were initially two companies: Canamedia Productions and Canamedia Film Productions, but they merged into, simply, Canamedia Inc. in 2007. Over the years, it has coproduced or co-ventured projects with BBC TV and Channel 4, Canal+, CBS, PBS, and Taurus Film in Germany, as well as all the major Canadian networks.

Past collaborator Andrew Johnson, commissioning editor and senior producer for CBC Newsworld’s The Lens, describes Harris as having a ‘unique blend of chutzpah and passion’ guided by a generous spirit.

‘I started my television career with a two-week assignment at Canamedia that turned into a seven-year lesson in documentary and drama production, video post-production, international distribution, and hands-on experiences that can’t be taught in school,’ Johnson says.

Harris’ outlook has evolved with the times. He foresees a day when companies such as his own ‘become their own TV networks online,’ bypassing traditional broadcasters and reaching viewers directly.

As for giving the world a chance to view his notorious debut film How to Blow Up the BBC, he confides that ‘Someone got the old 16mm print and burned it to DVD for me.’

Asked if he might post it on the Canamedia website as part of the company’s 30th anniversary celebration, Harris’ reply is a gleeful chuckle – one wry enough to unnerve any MI5 agent.

www.canamedia.com