Rudy Buttignol (born June 18, 1951) is a Canadian television network executive and entrepreneur. Buttignol was the president and CEO of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

Knowledge Network Knowledge Network, also branded as British Columbia's Knowledge Network, is a Canadian publicly funded educational cable television network serving the province of British Columbia. It is owned by the Knowledge Network Corporation, a Crown corp ...

, BC's public broadcaster, from 2007 until June 2022. He was also president of Canadian subscription television channel

BBC Kids BBC Kids is the international children's brand of BBC Studios, and has been applied to a number of TV services. It draws from the long history of children's programming on the BBC, and is strongly related to the CBBC channel in the United King ...

from 2011 until it ceased operations in 2018. In 2022, following a highly publicized diversity audit of the Knowledge Network, Buttignol was dismissed from his position as president and CEO.

Early life

Rudy Buttignol was born in 1951 in Pordenone, Italy to Nelda (Caterina) and Marino Buttignol. In 1955 at the age of four, Buttignol and his mother boarded the MS Vulcania and immigrated to Canada via

Pier 21 Pier 21 was an ocean liner terminal and immigration shed from 1928 to 1971 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Nearly one million immigrants came to Canada through Pier 21, and it is the last surviving seaport immigration facility in Canada. The fac ...

in Halifax. In

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

, they were reunited with Marino Buttignol, who had immigrated in 1954 to work for

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

laying rail in northern

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 ...

. Buttignol was raised and educated in

. From 1971 to 1975, he attended

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,000 faculty and staf ...

, Faculty of Fine Arts, where he studied film under James Beveridge, Louis de Rochemont 111 and

Terence Macartney-Filgate Terence Macartney-Filgate (6 August 1924 – 11 July 2022) was a British-Canadian film director who directed, wrote, produced or shot more than 100 films in a career spanning more than 50 years. Early life Born in England, Macartney-Filgate l ...

Career

Buttignol's career spans more than four decades. At the beginning of his career, he worked as an independent producer, director, writer and editor of documentary and children's programs, and later as a commissioning editor, television programmer, and broadcast executive. He has been called "Canadian broadcasting and documentary guru" and "friend of the auteur in Canada and abroad". Buttignol is acknowledged for his roles developing Canadian cultural policy related to documentary film funding and broadcasting and advancing the creative documentary genre in Canada and on the world stage. Rudy Buttignol originated the idea behind the 2014 television series '' Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH''. He stressed the distinction between the genre of the series, which is a documentary, and that of reality-based entertainment. From 1975 to 1993, Buttignol worked as an independent filmmaker creating film and video works. His early documentaries were about an Italian dairy (''The Dairy'' (1977), a Canadian artist (''Jack Bush'' (1979), a pop history of neon lights (''Neon, an Electric Memoir'' (1984), an Apollo-era astronaut who became an artist (''Allan Bean: Art Off This Earth'' (1990), and the early history of the Russian space program (''Soviet Space: The Secret Designer'' (1992). In 1993, Buttignol began work as a public broadcaster when he joined

TVOntario TVO Media Education Group (often abbreviated as TVO and stylized on-air as tvo) is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It is operated by the Ontario E ...

as commissioning editor and creative head of independent production. From 2000 to 2006, he was

's creative head of network programming, green lighting commissions such as: *Genie Award-winning Champagne Safari (1995) by George Ungar *Gemini Award-winning '' Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows'' (1998) by Paul Jay *Emmy Award-winning ''Let it come down: The Life of Paul Bowles'' (1999) by

Jennifer Baichwal Jennifer Baichwal is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, writer and producer. Biography Baichwal was born in Montreal, Quebec and raised in Victoria, British Columbia.

*'' The Corporation'' (2003) by Joel Bakan, Mark Achbar and

Jennifer Abbott Jennifer Abbott (born January 8, 1965) is a Sundance and Genie award-winning film director, writer, editor, producer and sound designer who specializes in social justice and environmental documentaries. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Abbott studied ...

*Multiple Gemini Award-winning ''Dying at Grace'' (2004) by

Allan King Allan Winton King, (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009), was a Canadian film director. Life Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the Great Depression, King attended Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano.Hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes fro ...

'' (2005) by

Hubert Davis (filmmaker) Hubert Davis is a Canadian filmmaker who was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural and Artistic Programming for his directorial debut in ''Hardwood'', a short documentary exploring ...

*'' Manufactured Landscapes'' (2006) by

Jennifer Baichwal Jennifer Baichwal is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, writer and producer. Biography Baichwal was born in Montreal, Quebec and raised in Victoria, British Columbia.

In 2004, he shared the Gemini's Donald Brittain Award with documentary filmmaker

Allan King Allan Winton King, (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009), was a Canadian film director. Life Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the Great Depression, King attended Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano. In 2007, Buttignol was awarded the inaugural Hot Docs' Doc Mogul Award. All together, Buttignol was the recipient of nine

Gemini Awards The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in the United States ...

, from the

Academy of Canadian Cinema and 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 film industry and television industry professionals, most notably through the Canadian S ...

. In 2007, Buttignol was appointed as president and CEO of British Columbia's

. In 2011, he became president of

. His mandate includes outreach through events throughout British Columbia. Along with his professional success, Buttignol contributed to and participated in a number of organizations. He is current Chair of the International Advisory Council of the

Hot Docs The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and Jun ...

Documentary Forum, Vice-Chair of the Canadian Association of Public Educational Media; and a Director on the Boards of the

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...

, and the Cultural Properties Export Review Board which is a Canadian federal government tribunal. Buttignol is also a director on the board of the Britannia Mine Museum,

Britannia Beach, British Columbia Britannia Beach (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh: Shisháyu7áy, ) is a small unincorporated community in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District located approximately 55 kilometres north of Vancouver, British Columbia on the Sea-to-Sky Highway on Howe Sound. ...

. In the past, he was founder of the

Financing Forum, elected chair of the board of the

from 1997 to 2003, President of the

Foundation, director on the boards of Banff Television Foundation,

Canada Media Fund The Canada Media Fund (CMF, french: Fonds des médias du Canada - FMC) is a public-private partnership founded on April 1, 2010 by the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canadian cable industry. It is used to fund the creation of original ...

Canadian Conference of the Arts The Canadian Conference of the Arts (the CCA) was an Ottawa-based, not-for-profit, member-driven organization that represented the interests of over 400,000 artists, cultural workers and supporters from all disciplines of the nation's arts, culture ...

, and moderator at the

Documentary Festival Summit. Buttignol was also a member of the European Television and Media Management Academy's Advisory Council in Strasbourg. In 2013, Buttignol was awarded the

Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (french: Médaille du jubilé de diamant de la reine Elizabeth II) or The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal was a commemorative medal created in 2012 to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's ...

in recognition of his contributions to British Columbians and Canadians, and for his role in transforming the Knowledge Network, British Columbia's public broadcaster. On December 30, 2015, it was announced that Buttignol was appointed as a Member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the c ...

for his contributions as a champion of Canadian documentary filmmaking and for his transformative leadership at the

. In 2017, Buttignol's arts advocacy was recognized with an honorary

Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...

from

Thompson Rivers University Thompson Rivers University (commonly referred to as TRU) is a public teaching and research university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees and vocational training. Its main campus is in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, and its na ...

, Kamloops, British Columbia. That same year, he was the recipient of

's Tentanda Via Bryden Alumni Award. The Tentanda Via Award reflects York University's motto, “The Way Must Be Tried”.

Controversy

In February 2022 an internal audit revealed that under Buttignol's leadership only 1.7% of the Knowledge Network's $2.054 million pre-licence funding, over a seven year period, had been awarded to production companies owned by people of colour. Indigenous filmmakers meanwhile had received no funding. Buttignol stated that he had "major reservations" with the audit. Members of the IBPOC film community claimed that Buttignol's response "contributed to an increased distrust and lack of confidence from filmmakers of colour and other concerned British Columbians". A petition on Change.org was started calling for his replacement. On June 17, 2022, the Knowledge Network's Board released a statement that Buttignol's contract had been terminated and that a national search would begin to find his replacement.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Buttignol, Rudy 1951 births Canadian people of Italian descent Canadian television executives Living people People from Pordenone Businesspeople from Toronto Businesspeople from Vancouver York University alumni Members of the Order of Canada