Robert Lang (producer)

Last updated
Robert Lang
PuttingYourDocsInARow.JPG
Robert Lang (middle)
Occupation Producer, director, Kensington Communications Inc.
NationalityCanadian
Genre documentary, factual television
Notable works The Shadow of Gold , Museum Secrets , Raw Opium , Diamond Road, The Sacred Balance
Website
www.kensingtontv.com

Robert Lang is a Canadian film producer, director, and writer. His career began in Montreal in the early 70s working on independent productions and at the National Film Board of Canada as a documentary film director and cinematographer. In 1980, he moved to Toronto, where he founded his own independent production company, Kensington Communications, to produce documentaries for television and non-theatrical markets. Since 1998, Lang has been involved in conceiving and producing interactive media for the Web and mobile devices.

Contents

Career

Robert Lang's work in television includes a number of documentary and factual series: Museum Secrets , a 22-part television series that investigates the stories behind artifacts in great museums around the world for History, UKTV and BBC Worldwide; Shameless Idealists, a five-part series that profiles a number of prominent change-makers and social activists for CTV; Diamond Road, a three-part series about the diamond industry for TVO, ZDF Arte and Discovery Times; The Sacred Balance, a four-part miniseries for CBC and PBS based on the book by geneticist and environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki; 72 Hours: True Crime, a true crime factual series for CBC and TLC; and Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science, a forensic crime series hosted by Graham Greene for Discovery and TLC.

Most recently, Lang's productions include: a one hour program for CBC Television, Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary (2024), two one-hour science documentaries, Why We Dance (2022) and Nature's Cleanup Crew (2020), for CBC Television's The Nature of Things and Arte; The Shadow of Gold for TVO, Arte France and SVT, co-produced with Films å Çinq and CAPA in Paris, a feature documentary examination of the global gold industry from raw material to market; and between 2015 and 2017, Lang produced two one-hour documentaries, Champions vs Legends and The Equalizer, produced by Kensington Communications in co-production with Berlin Producers for broadcast on CBC’s The Nature of Things, SRC Explora and ZDF/Arte. in 2017, he was director/writer/producer of a point-of-view 1-hour documentary for TVOntario and Canal D, called Risk Factor. In 2015, Lang produced a one-hour documentary for TVOntario and CPAC called The Drop: Why Young People Don't Vote.

Before that he was responsible for several documentary films, including: as producer, co-writer of Raw Opium, which examines the failure of the War on Drugs through the lives of people involved in the international opium trade (TVO, ZDF Arte, SBS); as director/writer/producer of Return to Nepal, in which musician Bruce Cockburn travels to the remote Humla district of Northwestern Nepal (CBC documentary); as co-writer/co-director/co-producer of Almost Home: a Sayisi Dene Journey, an intimate portrait of a Canadian aboriginal community in transition for CBC Nature of Things and APTN; as director/producer of River of Sand, which explores the ancient culture, popular music, and current struggles of the people of Mali, West Africa for Vision TV and TVO; as producer/co-director of Separate Lives, the Gemini-winning documentary which follows the lives of conjoined twins from Pakistan and the pioneering operation that gave them a chance at a new life for Discovery; as director/co-producer of The Biggest Little Ticket, a children’s musical fantasy special for CTV which won several awards and Mariposa: Under a Stormy Sky, a documentary music special for CTV.

He has produced many interactive digital projects over the years, from River of Sand interactive website (1998), to The Sacred Balance online (2003), Diamond Road interactive documentary (2007), Museum Secrets Interactive (2011), ScopifyROM, a mobile app to enhance the museum experience at the Royal Ontario Museum (2013) and Risk Navigator mobile app (2017).

Lang was recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002, was named North American Trailblazer of the Year by MIPDOC in 2009 and his work in film and television has garnered many national and international awards (see Awards section below for details). He's also been active in the production community as a founding member of the Documentary Organization of Canada, as a board member for The Real News since 2007 and as the founder of the Hot Docs CrossCurrents Fund in 2013.

Filmography

TV Series credits

Year(s)ProgramCreditNotes
1997–2002 Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science co-creator, producer, director (shared credits)66 episodes
2002 The Sacred Balance executive producer, director (shared credit)4 X 1 hour
2003-2007 72 Hours: True Crime co-creator, executive producer (shared credit)45 episodes
2007Diamond Roadproducer, executive producer3 X 1 hour limited series, feature doc
2009 City Sonic producer, director (Serena Ryder), executive producer (shared credit)20 episodes
2010-2013 Museum Secrets executive producer, co-creator, director (Inside the Vatican)22 episodes
2012Shameless Idealistsdirector, writer, executive producer5 x 1/2 hour

Select documentary credits

YearFilmProducerDirectorWriter
1973A Great Tree Has FallenYesYes
1976PotatoesYes
1981Childhood's EndYesYes
1983Joe David: Spirit of the MaskYesYes
1985Fragile HarvestYesYes
1986SeedsYesYes
1988One Warm Line: The Legacy of Stan RogersYesYes
1991Mariposa: Under a Stormy SkyYesYes
1991Earth Journal with Richard LeakeyYesYes
1993The Biggest Little TicketYesYes
1996Separate LivesYesYes
1998River of SandYesYesYes
2001My Beat: The Life and Times of Bruce CockburnYesYes
2003Almost Home: a Sayisi Dene JourneyYesYesYes
2007Diamond RoadYes
2008Return to NepalYesYesYes
2011 Raw Opium YesYes
2015The Drop: Why Young People Don't VoteYes
2016The EqualizerYes
2016Risk Factor AKA The Truth About RiskYesYesYes
2017Champions vs. LegendsYes
2018The Shadow of GoldYesYes
2019The Nature's Cleanup CrewYes
2022Why We DanceYes

Accolades

Related Research Articles

Catherine Annau is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and writer.

Stephen Low is a Canadian film director and screenwriter who works extensively in the IMAX and IMAX 3D film formats. Based in Montreal, Quebec, over his 30-plus year career Low has directed numerous award-winning film documentaries including Challenger: An Industrial Romance (1980), Beavers (1988), Titanica (1991), Super Speedway (1997), Volcanoes of the Deep Sea (2003), Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag (2004), Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D (2010), Legends of Flight 3D (2010), Rescue 3D (2011), Rocky Mountain Express (2011) and Aircraft Carrier (2017).

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 the life of his father, former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis. Davis was the first Afro-Canadian to be nominated for an Oscar.

Colin Archibald Low was a Canadian animation and documentary filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was known as a pioneer, one of Canada's most important filmmakers, and was regularly referred to as "the gentleman genius". His numerous honors include five BAFTA awards, eight Cannes Film Festival awards, and six Academy Award nominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yorkton Film Festival</span> Film festival

Yorkton Film Festival (YFF) is an annual film festival held in late May in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Moze Mossanen is a Canadian independent writer, director and producer who has created a body of critically acclaimed film and TV work blending drama, music, performance and documentary. Most recently, he wrote and directed the documentary feature, You Are Here: A Come From Away Story. His other works include Year of the Lion, a dance film adaptation of the novel, Dangerous Liaisons, and Nureyev, a docu-drama about the life of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Raymont</span> Canadian filmmaker

Peter Raymont is a Canadian filmmaker and producer and the president of White Pine Pictures, an independent film, television and new media production company based in Toronto. Among his films are Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire (2005), A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman (2007), The World Stopped Watching (2003) and The World Is Watching (1988). The 2011 feature documentary West Wind: The Vision of Tom Thomson and 2009's Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould were co-directed with Michèle Hozer.

Back Alley Film Productions is a television production company founded by Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell and based in Toronto, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec Canada. Founded in 1989, Back Alley is a creator and producer of original content for television with programming available in more than 120 countries worldwide.

Kensington Communications is a Toronto-based production company that specializes in documentary films and documentary/factual television series. Founded in 1980 by president Robert Lang, Kensington Communications Inc. has produced over 250 productions from documentary series and films to performing arts and children's specials. Since 1998, Kensington has also been involved in multi-platform interactive projects for the web and mobile devices.

Rezolution Pictures is an Indigenous film and television production company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Ernest Webb and Catherine Bainbridge. Rezolution Pictures’ passionate team is led by co-founders/Presidents/directors/executive producers Ernest Webb and Catherine Bainbridge, Vice-President/executive producer Christina Fon, and CFO/executive producer Linda Ludwick.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joel Gordon</span> Canadian actor and filmmaker

Joel Gordon is a Canadian actor, producer and director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jordan Canning</span> Canadian film and television director

Jordan Canning is a Canadian director for film and television. She is known for her independent feature films We Were Wolves (2014) and Suck It Up (2017), as well as her work directing on television series Baroness Von Sketch Show,Burden of Truth and Schitt's Creek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damon Vignale</span>

Damon Vignale is a Canadian writer, director, and producer working in film and television. He has directed the films Little Brother of War and The Entrance. He released the web series The Vetala in 2009, drawn from the Baital Pachisi, a collection of Sanskrit tales and legends, which received a 2010 Gemini Award. Vignale’s debut documentary film The Exhibition world premiered in the Next Program of the 2013 Hot Docs International Film Festival. The film won the 2014 International Emmy Award for Arts Programming. Vignale's television credits as a writer-producer include ABC/CTV's homicide series Motive, Bravo's police drama 19-2, and the ITV/BritBox series The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco. He is currently a writer and co-executive producer on the Paramount+/CBC medical drama series SkyMed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Marshall</span> Canadian film director

Liz Marshall is a Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto. Since the 1990s, she has directed and produced independent projects and been part of film and television teams, creating broadcast, theatrical, campaign and cross-platform documentaries shot around the world. Marshall's feature length documentaries largely focus on social justice and environmental themes through strong characters. She is known for The Ghosts in Our Machine and for Water on the Table, for which she also produced impact and engagement campaigns, and attended many global events as a public speaker. Water on the Table features water rights activist, author and public figure Maude Barlow. The Ghosts in Our Machine features animal rights activist, photojournalist and author Jo-Anne McArthur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Jackson (filmmaker)</span> First Nations filmmaker

Lisa Jackson is a Canadian Screen Award and Genie Award-winning Canadian and Anishinaabe filmmaker. Her films have been broadcast on APTN and Knowledge Network, as well as CBC's ZeD, Canadian Reflections and Newsworld and have screened at festivals including HotDocs, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Melbourne, Worldwide Short Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.

Karl Nerenberg is a Canadian journalist, broadcaster and filmmaker, working in both English and French languages. Since 2011 he has been the parliamentary correspondent, based in Ottawa, for the online, left-of-centre Canadian newsmagazine rabble.ca.

Kevin Eastwood is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and film and television producer. He is best known for directing the CBC Television documentaries Humboldt: The New Season and After the Sirens and the Knowledge Network series Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH and British Columbia: An Untold History. His credits as a producer include the movies Fido, Preggoland and The Delicate Art of Parking, the television series The Romeo Section, and the documentaries Haida Modern, Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World and Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson.

Matt Gallagher is a Canadian film director, producer and cinematographer from Windsor, Ontario.

Tom Radford is a Canadian documentary filmmaker from Edmonton, Alberta. A cofounder with Anne Wheeler and P. J. Reese of the Filmwest Associates studio, Radford is most noted for films on the history, culture and politics of Western Canada.

<i>Humboldt: The New Season</i> CBC Documentary

Humbolt: The New Season is a Canadian documentary television program about the aftermath of the 2018 bus crash that killed 16 members of Saskatchewan's Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team and injured 13 more. It was directed by Kevin Eastwood and Lucas Frison and commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the CBC Docs POV television program.

References

  1. "Awards Database". Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Archived from the original on 2013-12-16. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  2. "www.bullfrogfilms.com". Bullfrog Films. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  3. "Top 15 - 2008 Canadian New Media Awards". Backbone Magazine. Archived from the original on 2013-12-07. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  4. "Canadian Screen Awards database". Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Archived from the original on 2013-12-16. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  5. "2008 Worldfest Winner's List" (PDF). Worldfest Houston. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 20, 2009. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  6. "New York Festivals Awards Database". New York Festivals. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  7. "New York Festivals Awards Database". New York Festivals. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  8. "2004 Canadian Golden Sheaf Award Winners". Yorkton Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2013-12-07. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  9. "2004 Canadian Golden Sheaf Award Winners". Yorkton Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2013-12-07. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  10. "Houston Worldfest Houston Winners 2004" (PDF). Worldfest Houston. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 28, 2007. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  11. "A David Suzuki Foundation Moment in History: The Sacred Balance". David Suzuki Foundation. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  12. "Canadian Screen Awards Database". Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Archived from the original on 2013-12-16. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  13. "1997 Hot Docs Awards Archive". Hot Docs. Archived from the original on 2013-12-07. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
  14. "Bizet's Dream and Watatow take ACT Awards". Playback Magazine. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.