– My Russian Campaign: From Montreal To Moscow – Producer: John Curtin (Kaos Films Worldwide)
as a reporter for cbc, John Curtin was assigned to write a profile on Heidi Hollinger, a young Montreal woman who, with camera in hand, relocated to Russia and became one of Moscow’s hottest, more controversial photographers.
Leaving the printed word behind, Curtin entered the realm of filmmaking and produced My Russian Campaign: From Montreal To Moscow, a doc on Hollinger, whom he describes as having ‘chutzpah’ for having snapped some rather risque photos of politicians in their underwear or soaking in a tub.
Hollinger comes very close to some ‘seedy characters of dubious moral repute,’ whom she captures on film.
‘She collected an extraordinary gallery of Russian politicians portrayed in a manner never seen in the past,’ says Curtin.
The $100,000, 54-minute doc, financed by Curtin’s credit cards, has aired in Japan, Sweden and Germany and will soon run in Canada on wtn.

– Mystics, Mechanics and Mindbombs – Producer: Michael Chechik (Omni Film Productions/Raincoast Storylines)
Mystics, Mechanics and Mindbombs profiles the lives of former Greenpeace presidents Bob Hunter and Patrick Moore, and covers Greenpeace from its origins to the present.
No stranger to the subject matter, executive producer Michael Chechik was involved with the organization in its early days and in 1975 produced the documentary Greenpeace Voyages To Save The Whales.
Written, directed and coproduced by Jerry Thompson, Mystics, Mechanics and Mindbombs aired on cbc’s Witness in October 1996.
The 47-minute doc was shot for under $400,000, with funding from Telefilm Canada, cbc, British Columbia Film and the Rogers Documentary Fund.
– Nowhere Else To Live – Producer: Alan Handel (Alan Handel Productions/CBC Man Alive)
alan Handel was intrigued by the phenomenon of people flocking from the countryside to cities creating new urban landscapes, so he spent two weeks in Mexico City documenting the lives of several illegal squatters, examining how they live, cope and survive in one of the fastest growing cities in the world.
Nowhere Else To Live is one of several documentaries by Handel focusing on the cities of the developing world. Funding for the $168,000 project came from the Canada International Development Agency, which encourages filmmakers to produce works on the developing world, from tax credits and from the ctcpf.
Produced in association with CBC’s: Man Alive, where it ran last spring, the film will play this month on rdi. Handel is currently in the process of finding an international distributor to take his film to the major markets.
– Picturing a People: George Johnston, Tlingit Photographer – Producers: Sally Bochner, George Hargrave (NFB, Nutaaq Media)
carol Geddes, a Yukon native and director and producer of Picturing a People: George Johnston, Tlingit Photographer, set the documentary wheels in motion around four years ago in the Edmonton studio of the National Film Board. But after completing a third of the film, production ground to a halt.
A couple of years later at the Banff Television Festival, Geddes and George Hargrave discussed the work-in-progress and decided the project was worthwhile and should go back into production.
The doc chronicles the life of George Johnston, a hunter, trapper, entrepreneur and photographer who documented the changes in Yukon life before and after wwii.
The bulk of the financing for the $425,000 film came from the nfb. The film has already run on Vision tv and tvontario and will air on Bravo!, scn, Knowledge and cfcf-tv Montreal.
– The Selling of Innocents – Producers: Elliott Halpern, William Cobban, Simcha Jacobovici (Associated Producers)
when putting together The Selling Of Innocents seven years ago, filmmakers Elliott Halpern, Simcha Jacobovici and William Cobban met with resistance from broadcasters who felt there wouldn’t be much audience interest in what they thought was ‘a kind of indigenous Indian story.’
But around the time the film was completed in 1995, an international conference in Stockholm on the exploitation of children raised global interest in the subject and the film, about the sex trade in India, achieved success at international markets.
‘We have been lucky in getting ahead of the curve in a biz where you really have to do long-term planning,’ says Halpern. ‘It’s not so easy.’
The $400,000 doc ran on cbc’s Witness in Canada, and on hbo and Cinemax in the u.s. It aired in Germany and France, won the producers a ’97 Emmy Award for investigative journalism, and, according to Halpern, has been in steady demand.
Also in this report:
Profiling Best Direction in a Dramatic TV Series: Kari Skogland p.22
Jon Cassar p.22
Jane Thompson p.27
Profiling Best Writing in a Dramatic Program or Miniseries:
Jim Burt: The non-nominee behind so many nominations p.29
Janis Cole p.29
David Adams Richards p.31
Keith Ross Leckie p.37
Pete White p.37
Profiling the contenders for Best Sports Program or Series p.39
The nominees list p.44