Barry Michael Avrich ( ; born May 9, 1963) is a Canadian

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

, film producer, author, marketing executive, and arts

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

. Avrich's film career has included critically acclaimed films about the entertainment business including ''The Last Mogul'' about film producer Lew Wasserman (2005), ''Glitter Palace'' about the Motion Picture Country Home (2005), and ''Guilty Pleasure'' about the '' Vanity Fair'' columnist and author Dominick Dunne (2004). In addition, Avrich produced the Gemini-nominated television special ''Caesar and Cleopatra'' (2009) with

Christopher Plummer Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage and television. His accolades included an Academy Aw ...

. Avrich also produced Canada's Sports Hall of Fame Awards (2015) as well as the Canadian Screen Awards (2015-2017) and The Scotiabank Giller Prize (2015-Current). Besides films, Avrich has authored three books and one play as well as supporting many leading cultural institutions including The

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

and the Stratford Festival of Canada. Avrich was responsible for creating a

movie theatre A movie theater (American English) or cinema (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business ...

at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario. Avrich won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2008. In 2016, Avrich published his memoir, "Moguls, Monsters and Madmen."

Early life

Avrich was born into a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, the son of Irving Avrich, a garment industry executive, and Faye Avrich, a housewife. His parents immersed him in the arts as a child. In school, Avrich produced

talent show A talent show or talent contest is an event in which participants perform the arts of singing, dancing, lip-syncing, acting, martial arts, playing an instrument, poetry, comedy or other activities to showcase skills. Many talent shows are p ...

s and started experimenting with films. While attending

Vanier College Vanier College () is an Quebec English, English-language public College (Quebec), college located in the Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1970 as the second English-language public coll ...

, he gravitated to the film program and while there, he produced many films. In 1980, he moved to

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

where he continued to study film, art and theatre at both

Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, or Toronto Met), formerly Ryerson University, is a Public university, public research university located in Toronto, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, Toronto, Gar ...

and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. While in school, Avrich started Rent-A-Fan Club, a company that offered "celebrity status" to people as a novelty by using his fellow acting students to create fan clubs. Soon after graduating, Avrich made two short films that would get him noticed: ''The King of Yorkville'' (1985) was a satirical parody of the 1980s dating scene that was picked up by local television stations in Canada, and ''The Madness of Method'' (1995), featuring M. Emmet Walsh, won a Gold Medal at the Bilbao International Festival of Documentary and Short Films.

Career

Film

Avrich created Melbar Entertainment Group in 1998 to produce

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

s. Avrich has directed and produced many acclaimed documentaries and

television special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of en ...

s. His focus is generally on the entertainment industry and television specials, including the music special, ''Bowfire'' for PBS (2008), ''One x One Gala'' (2007) for CTV and ''Caesar and Cleopatra'' (2009) for Bravo and CTV. Other films have chronicled defense attorney Edward Greenspan and the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

promoter Michael Cohl,

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

, and David Steinberg. His 2010 film '' Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project'' was sold to IFC's Sundance Now channel in February 2011. In 2017, Avrich announced plans for a docuseries on American financier and convicted sex offender

Jeffrey Epstein Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( , ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American financier and child sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional career as a teacher at the Dalton School, despite lacking a col ...

; however, he decided to scrap the project after Epstein's suicide in August, 2019, claiming the topic to be "too distasteful". In 2018, Avrich directed and produced ''The Reckoning,'' the first "#metoo documentary on Harvey Weinstein, which premiered at Hot Docs Film Festival and was sold to CBC and Hulu. In 2018, Avrich produced and directed an acclaimed and award-winning documentary, ''Prosecuting Evil,'' on Nuremberg prosecutor

Ben Ferencz Benjamin Berell Ferencz (March 11, 1920 – April 7, 2023) was an American lawyer. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen trial, one of the 12 su ...

, which was sold to Netflix. In 2019, Avrich directed and produced ''Off The Record,'' a biography of Grammy award-winning producer and composer David Foster, for Crave and Netflix, which premiered at

TIFF Tag Image File Format or Tagged Image File Format, commonly known by the abbreviations TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is w ...

. In 2020, Avrich produced '' Made You Look'', a documentary about the infamous Knoedler Gallery art fraud scandal which was sold to Netflix. In 2021, Avrich directed and produced ''Oscar Peterson: Black + White'', a docu-concert on jazz icon Oscar Peterson that had its world premiere at TIFF on September 12, 2021. In 2022, Avrich began production on three new documentaries: ''Without Precedent'' (on Supreme Court Justice

Rosalie Abella Rosalie Silberman Abella (born July 1, 1946) is a Canadians, Canadian jurist. In 2004, Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jews, Jewish woman and refugee to sit on the Canadian Supreme Court bench. She retire ...

), ''Sacrilege'' (narrated by Brian Cox), and ''The Palm Beach Diaries.'' ''The Last Mogul'' (2005) is probably Avrich's best known film to date. The '' Variety'' critic Robert Koehler said of the documentary about Lew Wasserman that it "draws a full and balanced measure of the man, from his stratospheric rise to a remarkably humbling fall, and includes as thorough a study of the super-agent-turned-mogul's shady ties with organized crime as any feature docu could hope to muster."

Awards and Controversy

In April 2022, Avrich received a

Canadian Screen Award The Canadian Screen Awards () are awards given for artistic and technical merit in the film industry recognizing excellence in Canadian film, English-language television, and digital media ( web series) productions. Given annually by the Academy ...

for Best Documentary Program for ''Oscar Peterson: Black + White''. When called up to the mic to make an acceptance speech, his remarks ended with the following statement: "There are so many Black stories in Canada that need to be told. It doesn't matter who tells them, we just need to tell 'em." At least 11 Canadian film-sector organizations issued prompt statements condemning these remarks, including the Black Screen Office, whose statement called out Avrich's "supreme disrespect of our history" that "cleverly weaponizes the non-Black community"; Reelworld Film Festival, whose statement called out Avrich's words as "reflective of a past system that we are working to change"; and, without naming Avrich, the

Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television is a Canadian non-profit organization created in 1979 to recognize the achievements of the over 4,000 Canadian cinema of Canada, film industry and television in Canada, television industry professionals ...

that is responsible for the Canadian Screen Awards. Avrich's statement the next day said that he had "misspoke" and that " course, it matters who tells stories."

Business

Avrich began a marketing career in 1985 at Borden Advertising where he worked on national campaigns for the Canadian original production of ''

Les Misérables ''Les Misérables'' (, ) is a 19th-century French literature, French Epic (genre), epic historical fiction, historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published on 31 March 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. '' ...

'' and ''

Miss Saigon ''Miss Saigon'' is a sung-through musical theatre, stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madama Butterfly'', and similarly tells th ...

''. In 1989, Avrich joined Echo Advertising where he became partner and eventually CEO. While at Echo, Avrich and his staff developed award-winning international campaigns for such clients such as the

, the

American Express American Express Company or Amex is an American bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment card industry, payment cards. It is headquartered at 200 Vesey Street, also known as American Expr ...

, Sprint and for Broadway productions such as ''

Ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its Syncopation, syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers ...

'', ''

Show Boat ''Show Boat'' is a musical theatre, musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 Show Boat (novel), novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the per ...

'', '' Fosse,'' '' Kiss of the Spider Woman'' and Canadian productions of '' The Phantom of the Opera'', ''

Cats The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

'' and ''Les Misérables''. Avrich left Echo in 2005 after it was sold to a UK-based marketing firm and he started a boutique advertising agency.

Filmography

* ''The King of Yorkville'', 1987 * ''The Madness of Method'', 1996 * ''Unforgettable: 100 years Remembered'', 1998 * ''Glitter Palace'', 2002 * ''Guilty Pleasure'', 2002 * ''A Criminal Mind'', 2005 * ''Satisfaction'', 2006 * ''City Lights'', 2002 * ''The Madness of King Richard'', 2003 * ''The Last Mogul'', 2005 * ''One x One Gala'', 2007 * ''Bowfire'', 2008 * ''Citizen Cohl'', 2008 * ''The Ultimate Jew'', 2009 * ''Caesar and Cleopatra'', 2009 * ''Amerika Idol'', 2009 * ''Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Story'', 2010 * ''The Tempest'', 2010 * ''An Unlikely Obsession: Churchill and the Jews'', 2011 * ''Show Stopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky'', 2012 * '' Filthy Gorgeous: The Bob Guccione Story '', 2013 * ''Quality Balls The David Steinberg Story'', 2013 * ''Red Alert'', 2014 * ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'', 2015 * ''

Antony and Cleopatra ''Antony and Cleopatra'' is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed around 1607, by the King's Men at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre. Its first appearance in print was in the First Folio published ...

'', 2015 * '' King John'', 2015 * ''Women Who Act'', 2015 * ''The Man Who Shot Hollywood'', 2015 (documentary short) * ''The Taming of the Shrew'', 2016 * ''Canadian Screen Awards'', 2016 (television) * ''Hamlet'', 2016 * ''The Scotia Giller Prize'' Broadcast, 2016 (television) * ''Macbeth'', 2016 * ''Blurred Lines'', 2017 (documentary) * ''Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz'', 2018 (documentary) * '' David Foster: Off the Record'', 2019 (documentary) * '' Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art'', 2020 * ''Howie Mandel: But, Enough About Me'', 2020 (Documentary) * ''Reversal of Fortune: The Unraveling of Turkey's Democracy'', 2020 (Documentary) * ''Othello'', 2020 * ''Merry Wives of Windsor'', 2020 * '' Oscar Peterson: Black + White'', 2021 * ''The Talented Mr. Rosenberg'', 2021 * ''Sacrilege'', 2022 * '' Three Tall Women'', 2022 * ''Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella'', 2023Barry Hertz
"Hot Docs 2023: Former Supreme Court judge Rosalie Abella claims another precedent with new film"
''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', April 21, 2023.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Avrich, Barry 1963 births Living people 20th-century Canadian businesspeople 20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights Businesspeople from Montreal Canadian advertising executives Film producers from Quebec Canadian non-fiction writers Film directors from Montreal Philanthropists from Quebec Writers from Montreal Canadian male dramatists and playwrights Canadian television producers 20th-century Canadian male writers Canadian male non-fiction writers Canadian documentary film directors Canadian documentary film producers Jewish Canadian film people Canadian Screen Award winning directors