Peter Kenneth Wintonick (June 10, 1953 – November 18, 2013) was a Canadian independent

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

maker based in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

. A winner of the 2006

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual List of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. Th ...

in Visual and Media Arts, former Thinker in Residence for the Premier of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, prolific award-winning filmmaker, he was one of Canada's best known international documentarians.

Biography

Born in

Trenton, Ontario Trenton (2001 population 16,770) is a large unincorporated community in Central Ontario in the municipality of Quinte West, Ontario, Canada. Located on the Bay of Quinte, it is the starting point for the Trent-Severn Waterway, which continues n ...

in 1953, Wintonick was the son of John Wintonick and Norma Latham. He was of Ukrainian descent. He founded Necessary Illusions Productions with Mark Achbar, and subsequently ran it with Francis Miquet. Wintonick was a co-founder of DocAgora, an event inserted into various film festivals showcasing cutting-edge digital strategies. He co-directed, with his daughter, Mira Burt-Wintonick, the 2009 documentary ''PilgrIMAGE'', a film about documentary filmmaking. Wintonick died of cholangiocarcinoma on November 18, 2013, aged 60.

Select filmography

*'' Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media'' (1992) with

Mark Achbar Mark Achbar (born in Ottawa in 1955) is a Canadian filmmaker, best known for '' The Corporation'' (2003) and '' Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media'' (1994). Biography Achbar is a graduate of Syracuse University's Fine Arts Fil ...

and Francis Miquet *'' Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment'' (1999) 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 ...

*'' Seeing is Believing: Handicams, Human Rights and the News'' (2002) winner of the Dan & Ewa Abraham and Tammy Abraham Award for Films of Conflict & Resolution at the 2002

Hamptons International Film Festival The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is an international film festival founded in 1992, by Joyce Robinson. The festival has since taken place every year in East Hampton, New York. It is usually an annual five-day event in mid-October ...

and Gemini Award nominee, co-directed with

Katerina Cizek Katerina Cizek is a Canadian documentary director and a pioneer in digital documentaries. She is the Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technolog ...

Other work

In early 2005, at the invitation of the premier of South Australia, he filled the post of Thinker in Residence, examining the future of documentaries and the digital revolution with a focus on educational and cultural legislation.

Governor General's Award

Wintonick was the winner of a 2006 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. His body of work includes dramatic features, theatrical documentaries, educational and socio-political works.

Legacy

In 2014, a new award called the Peter Wintonick Award was given at

Sheffield Doc/Fest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The Festival includes film sc ...

to '' Vessel''. The award was presented by Martin Rosenbaum, who read a message from Wintonick's daughter Mira, which said that she was very happy to see the award go to "a filmmaker who embodies his activist spirit." Wintonick's film ''Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media'' was also screened at the festival. He is the subject of his daughter Mira's 2019 film ''

Wintopia ''Wintopia'' is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Mira Burt-Wintonick and released in 2019. Originally conceived as an attempt to complete ''Utopia'', an unfinished documentary film her father, Peter Wintonick, was working on at the time of ...

''.Alex Rose
"Montreal filmmaker Peter Wintonick is the subject of a very personal new film"
'' Cult MTL'', March 26, 2021.

References

External links

Necessary IllusionsDocAgoraSeeing is BelievingFilms we Like
*
Obituary at ReelScreen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wintonick, Peter 1953 births 2013 deaths Film directors from Ontario Canadian documentary film directors People from Quinte West Anglophone Quebec people Deaths from cholangiocarcinoma Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Canadian people of Ukrainian descent