Richard Charles Bocking (March 21, 1931 – September 28, 2012) was an award-winning Canadian filmmaker whose documentaries on the environment and the performing arts aired on Canadian and European network television for over forty years.

Biography

Born in Port Arthur (now

Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population i ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Bocking graduated from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

government for seven years. His work then took him into broadcasting when the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

(CBC) invited him to help produce farm-related programs for radio and television. His broadcasting interests developed to include performing arts and environmental and resource issues. He was transferred to

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

to take on the role of television producer. He has since produced over 60 films. Some of those feature documentaries, produced in Canada and abroad, include: ''Tristan und Isolde'' (1976), ''The Music of Man'' (1979), ''Vivaldi'' (1986), which was filmed in Venice and Montreal and awarded the Prix Anik, for best music program on CBC television in 1987, ''Jon Vickers: A Man and His Music'' (1975), ''Canada To-morrow'' (1973), showcasing the development policies of Canada, and ''Canada's Water: For Sale?'' (1972), which studied the issue of exporting Canada's water to the United States. ''Canada's Water: For Sale'' was also a book published in 1972. Bocking donated copies of his documentary films to universities, which are available to students and faculty through the Audio Visual department. In 1997, Bocking published ''Mighty River: A Portrait Of The Fraser'', for which he won the Roderick Haig-Brown Prize, in addition to being nominated for the

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize The Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, established in 1985, is awarded annually as the BC Book Prize for the best non-fiction book by a resident of British Columbia, Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three ...

in 1998 and awarded a certificate of merit by the B.C. Historical Federation. In 2001, he was made the

Trent University Trent University is a public liberal arts university in Peterborough, Ontario, with a satellite campus in Oshawa, which serves the Regional Municipality of Durham. Trent is known for its Oxbridge college system and small class sizes.

Ashley Fellow for 2001/2002.trentmagazine.ca
He lived and worked in Edmonton, Vancouver, Quebec City, Rome, Toronto, and Montreal. He and his wife Winnifred lived in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. The ...

References

External links

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Coastworks: Richard BockingSimon Fraser University: Bocking articleRichard Bocking Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bocking, Richard 2012 deaths 1931 births Canadian documentary film producers Writers from Thunder Bay Canadian Broadcasting Corporation people