Paul Cowan is a

Canadian Canadians () 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 their being ''C ...

filmmaker who spent the bulk of his career with the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

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 Academy Honorary Award, Special Awards to ''Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. The ...

for '' Going the Distance'', a documentary about the

1978 Commonwealth Games The 1978 Commonwealth Games were held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, from 3 to 12 August, two years after the 1976 Summer Olympics was held in Montreal, Quebec. They were boycotted by Nigeria, in protest at New Zealand's sporting contacts with a ...

. 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 The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978), known as the "Etrog Awards" for sculptor ...

for his documentary ''Westray'', on the Westray Mine 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 23 December 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 Ryers ...

'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. It concerns the 1956 Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810 plane crash into Slesse Mountain 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'', co-directed with Palestinian artist Amer Shomali, about the efforts of the Palestinian town of

Beit Sahour Beit Sahour or Beit Sahur (; Palestine grid 170/123) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian town east of Bethlehem, in the Bethlehem Governorate of the West Bank in the State of Palestine. The city is under the administration of the Palestinian Nat ...

to establish an independent dairy industry during the

First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...

. 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 (director), David Dobkin's film ''The Judge (2014 film), The Judg ...

Personal life

A resident of

Westmount, Quebec Westmount () is a city on the Island of Montreal, in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is an enclave of the city of Montreal, with a population of 19,658 as of the 2021 Canadian census. Westmount is home to schools, an arena, a pool, a public li ...

, Cowan is married to CBC radio personality

Katie Malloch Katie Malloch is a Canadian broadcaster who previously hosted the series '' Tonic'', a nightly jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centu ...

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 Canadian Screen Award winning writers