American Masters Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould

Biographies

MICHÈLE HOZER

Director/Editor

 

Michèle Hozer, a two-time Gemini award-winning documentary editor, has been working in the Canadian film industry since 1987.  Fluently bilingual, Michèle grew up in Montreal and studied Communications at Concordia University.  She started her career at The National Film Board of Canada, working first in production then as an editor.

In the spring of 1996, Hozer moved to Toronto, working as a freelance editor for well-known production companies and major broadcasters. She received her first Gemini in 2000 for The Nature of Things on their millennium special Race for the Future.

In August 2001, Hozer established The Cutting Factory, ensuring the best possible editing environment within the audio post facility of Kitchen Sync.  She has cut over 50 documentaries, including award-winning series, such as The Baby Human, The Undefended Border, and China Rises. With a constant focus on story-telling, Michèle applies her unique editing style to a variety of genres, whether arts documentaries, like Can’t Stop Now with Karen Kain and Jiri Kilean, or social issue films such as Tsepong: A Clinic called Hope, or historical subject matter such as the feature length Arctic Dreamer: The Lonely Quest of Viljhalmur Stefansson (both with White Pine Pictures).

She has worked with Peter Raymont for 8 years, winning her second Gemini for editing the critically-acclaimed feature length documentary, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire.

Triage: The Dilemma of Dr. James Orbinski, another feature documentary edited by Hozer, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, and has been screened internationally.

Hozer recently edited the feature length documentary A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, which had its world premiere at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, was short-listed for an Oscar, received two Gemini awards, including Best Social Political Documentary, as well as a number of other international awards.

 

PETER RAYMONT

Director/Producer

 

Filmmaker, journalist, writer, activist, Peter Raymont has produced and directed over 100 documentary films and series during his 38 year career. His films have taken him to Ethiopia, Nicaragua, India, Rwanda, Chile the High Arctic and throughout North America and Europe.

Raymont’s films have received 42 international awards including a Canadian Genie, 9 Gemini Awards (and 34 nominations), several Gold and Silver Hugos, The Sesterce d’Argent and other international honours. His documentary feature, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire received a 2007 Emmy for Best Documentary and the Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Raymont’s films are often provocative investigations of “hidden worlds” in politics, the media and big business. His films are informed with a passion for human rights and social justice and are regularly broadcast on private and public TV networks worldwide.

His career began at age 21 at the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal where, from 1971-78, he worked as an editor, director and producer. While at the NFB, Raymont also taught film and video production in the Canadian Arctic. In 1979, Raymont moved to Toronto and established his independent film and television production company, Investigative Productions, now operating as White Pine Pictures. He co-partnered the company for many years with his late wife, award-winning filmmaker and author, Lindalee Tracey.

Raymont’s previous work as a director, A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. It is an exploration of exile, memory, longing and democracy, experienced by the Argentine-American writer and playwright, Ariel Dorfman.

Raymont also produced Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma which had its North American premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was a top ten audience pick at the IDFA Festival in Amsterdam and the 2008 Hot Docs Documentary Festival.

Raymont is Executive Producer and co-creator of the hit TV drama series The Border, currently in production for its third season on the CBC. Seasons One and Two of The Border have been sold to 25 countries worldwide and have recently been licensed to ION Television in the USA.

 

SUSAN LACY

Series Creator and Executive Producer

 

Susan Lacy, series creator and executive producer of American Masters, has been

responsible for the production and national broadcast of more than 160 documentary films about our country’s artistic and cultural giants. Now celebrating its 22nd season on PBS, American Masters has garnered unprecedented awards and is consistently recognized by television critics as “the best biographical series ever to appear on American television.”

In addition to her executive producing role, Lacy is an award-winning filmmaker. Her 2004 Judy Garland: By Myself earned her an Emmy award for writing and an Emmy nomination for directing. She wrote, directed and produced Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind (IDA nomination for Outstanding Documentary) and Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note (Emmy award and DGA nomination.) She produced the Peabody award-winning Paul Simon: Born at the Right Time, directed and produced Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval, and directed and produced Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice – all for American Masters.

Under her leadership, American Masters has received the Primetime Emmy for

Outstanding Non-Fiction Series in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2008 and 2009 as well as 16 other Primetime Emmy awards in various craft categories, with an overall total of 42 Emmy nominations. Lacy received Grammy awards for Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and three Oscar nominations.

 

Lacy’s career in public television began in 1979, as deputy director of performance programs at Thirteen/WNET New York. She was senior program executive for Great

Performances, worked as director of program development with The American

Playhouse, where she was a founding member, and then ran the east coast office of the Sundance Institute, from 1984 to 1987. She was a consulting producer at Time-Life Video during the launch of Time-Warner’s new initiatives in long-form documentary production. Lacy also led programs at both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lacy was one of the select 2005 honorees at the Museum of Television & Radio’s “She Made It” event, which recognized 50 exceptional women who have created and informed the genre, and a 2008 Washington, DC Women of Vision Awards recipient, honoring those in film and video who inspire and mentor. She was again honored in Washington, DC in 2010 as the recipient of the Cine Golden Eagle Lifetime Achievement Award. She serves on the board of governors of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, on the board of the Film Forum and is a trustee of the Independent Documentary Association. Lacy is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, the Independent Features Project and New York Women in Film & Television.

 

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