1926 - Yorkton, Saskatchewan
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Visionary filmmaker and technical innovator Roman Kroitor has transformed film in numerous ways. In addition to making some of the NFB's best films in the 1950s and 1960s and being one of the pioneers of direct cinema, he invented the IMAX system and a 3D animation technique.

His interest in film was sparked by an experimental film by Maya Deren, and after completing his MA in philosophy and psychology at the University of Manitoba he joined the NFB in 1949. He started as a production assistant and went on to be an editor, director and producer. His first film was an educational documentary, but his second paved the way for direct cinema and the new documentary approaches that were to characterize the NFB's productions some years later. Paul Tomkowicz: Street-railway Switchman (1954) focuses on a Polish immigrant who maintains the tramlines in the winter. The film was shot in the streets of Winnipeg with a lightweight 35 mm camera, and the soundtrack, featuring just the switchman's voice, was unusual at that time. It was awarded first prize at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in Germany.

He went on to be part of the creative fervour at the NFB's Studio B with Wolf Koenig, Colin Low and Terence Macartney-Filgate, under the direction of Tom Daly. They were all passionately interested in experimenting, enabling viewers to feel more immersed in the filmed reality; their series Candid Eye was one of the earliest examples of direct film. Kroitor's creative partnerships with Wolf Koenig and Colin Low resulted in some of the classic documentaries of the period. With Koenig he co- directed Glenn Gould - On & Off the Record (1959), Lonely Boy (1962) and Stravinsky (1965). Lonely Boy in particular, a close-up portrayal of young singer Paul Anka and his entourage, is a landmark in the history of documentary film. With Low, he co-directed Universe (1960), famous for having influenced Stanley Kubrick in the visual conception of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and the multi-screen film Labyrinth that made a hit at Montreal's Expo 67. As a producer he was involved in the development of fiction films at the NFB, starting with Don Owen's successful feature Nobody Waved Goodbye (1964).

Kroitor left the NFB in 1967 and co-founded Multi-Screen Corporation, which later became IMAX Corporation. Following up on his experimental Labyrinth, still in love with technological innovation in film, he co-invented the IMAX system. Between the 1970s and the first decade of this century he has produced a number of IMAX and IMAX 3D films, co-directing the first feature film in IMAX format IMAX: Rolling Stones: "At the Max" (1991). During the 1970s he came back to the NFB as a producer. For the IMAX Corporation in the 1990s he developed SANDDE, a 3D stereoscopic animation technique.

 » See also (in English):

Roman Kroitor: Master Filmmaker and Technical Wizard, Interview in Take One, May 2001. Accessible online at The Free Library:http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ROMAN+KROITOR-a076497140

Roman Kroitor, entry from Canadian Film Encyclopaedia, in Film Reference Library, Toronto International Film Festival Group: http://filmreferencelibrary.ca/index.asp?layid=46&csid1=305&navid=46

Roman Kroitor on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Kroitor

Roman Kroitor at IMDB.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0471993/

 Selected Filmography (as director)

Rescue Party, 1952
Paul Tomkowicz: Street-railway Switchman, 1952
Farm Calendar, 1955
L'année B la ferme, 1957
The Great Plains, Canadian Geography series, 1956
Glenn Gould - Off the Record, 1959 (co-directed with Wolf Koenig)
Glenn Gould - On the Record, 1959 (co-directed with Wolf Koenig)
Universe, 1960 (co-directed with Colin Low)
Festival in Puerto Rico, 1961 (co-directed with Wolf Koenig)
Lonely Boy, 1961 (co-directed with Wolf Koenig)
Above the Horizon, 1964 (co-directed with Hugh O'Connor)
Canadian Businessmen, 1964 (co-directed with Wolf Koenig)
Stravinsky, 1965 (co-directed with Wolf Koenig)
Labyrinth, 1967 (co-directed with Colin Low and Hugh O'Connor)
IBM Close-up, 1968 (co-directed with Graeme Ferguson)
Code Name Running Jump, 1972
Exercise Running Jump II, 1972
Circus World, 1974
Rolling Stones at the Max, 1991 (co-directed with Julien Temple, David Douglas, Noel Archambault; IMAX^MD)
Paint Misbehavin', 1996 (IMAX^MD3D)

» Watch films by Roman Kroitor at NFB.ca