Paul Cowan is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

filmmaker who spent the bulk of his career with the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

Career

Cowan was nominated for an

Academy Award for Documentary Feature The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Special Awards to '' Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. They have since been best ...

for '' Going the Distance'', a documentary about the 1978 Commonwealth Games. He was the director of the controversial docudrama '' The Kid Who Couldn't Miss'' and cinematographer on the Oscar-winning '' Flamenco at 5:15''. He is the winner of a Genie Award for his documentary ''Westray'', on the

Westray Mine The Westray Mine was a Canadian coal mine in Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter ...

disaster. He wrote and directed the 2005 documentary '' The Peacekeepers''. He retired from the NFB in 2009, after directing a film adaptation of

Margaret MacMillan Margaret Olwen MacMillan, (born 1943) is a Canadian historian and professor at the University of Oxford. She is former provost of Trinity College, Toronto, and professor of history at the University of Toronto and previously at Ryerson Univer ...

's '' Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War''. He directed the 2012 documentary ''The Crash of Flight 810'', part of TSN's ''Engraved on a Nation'' series of eight documentaries celebrating the

100th Grey Cup The 100th Grey Cup was a Canadian football game between the East Division champion Toronto Argonauts and the West Division champion Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League to decide the Grey Cup champions of the 2012 season. Th ...

. It concerns the 1956 Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810 plane crash into

Slesse Mountain Slesse Mountain, usually referred to as Mount Slesse, is a mountain just north of the US-Canada border, in the Cascade Mountains of British Columbia, near the town of Chilliwack. It is notable for its large, steep local relief. For example, its w ...

in B.C. that killed all 62 people on board, including five football players returning from the annual East-West All-Star Game, and its impact on the players' families and Canadian football. In 2014, Cowan completed the documentary ''

The Wanted 18 ''The Wanted 18'' is a 2014 Palestinian-Canadian animated documentary about the efforts of Palestinians in Beit Sahour to start a small local dairy industry during the First Intifada, hiding a herd of 18 dairy cows from Israeli security forces wh ...

'', co-directed with Palestinian artist Amer Shomali, about the efforts of the Palestinian town of

Beit Sahour Beit Sahour or Beit Sahur ( ar, بيت ساحور pronounced ; Palestine grid 170/123) is a Palestinian town east of Bethlehem, in the Bethlehem Governorate of the State of Palestine. The city is under the administration of the Palestinian Nation ...

to establish an independent dairy industry during the First Intifada. The film premiered at the

2014 Toronto International Film Festival The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin's film '' The Judge'', starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert D ...

Personal life

A resident of Westmount, Quebec, Cowan is married to CBC radio personality

Katie Malloch Katie Malloch is a Canadian broadcaster who previously hosted the series '' Tonic'', a nightly jazz program on CBC Radio 2. She was co-creator and host of '' Jazz Beat'' which aired on CBC radio from 1983 to March 2007. A graduate of McGill Univers ...

References

External links

Watch Paul Cowan's films at NFB.ca
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cowan, Paul Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People from Westmount, Quebec Anglophone Quebec people Film directors from Quebec National Film Board of Canada people Directors of Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners for Best Documentary Film