
Robin Spry
Directing
Biography
Robin Spry (October 25, 1939 – March 28, 2005) was a Canadian film director and television producer and screenwriter. Spry was perhaps best known for his documentary films Action: The October Crisis of 1970 and Reaction: A Portrait of a Society in Crisis about Quebec's October Crisis. Robin Spry was born in Toronto, Ontario to Canadian broadcast pioneer Graham Spry and economic historian Irene Spry. After studies at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, Spry began his filmmaking career in 1964 at the National Film Board in Montreal, earning a place on its payroll in 1965 and remaining there until stepping down in 1978. While at the NFB Spry built a reputation as a documentarist engaged with the issues of the day, with films on abortion, youth rebellion, and contemporary politics. His Prologue documented the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, weaving narrative with archival footage to become, in 1969, the first Canadian film to appear at the Venice Film Festival. His Canadian Film Award-winning documentary Action: The October Crisis of 1970 (1973) used a similar approach to tell the story of the kidnapping of British diplomat James Richard Cross and the murder of Pierre Laporte. Spry also tried his hand at other aspects of the film trade, acting as a producer, filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, cinematographer and film editor, and appearing in several colleagues' films, including Denys Arcand's Québec, Duplessis et après" (1972), reading out sections of the 1837 Durham Report. Spry starred in the 1981 hostage film Kings and Desperate Men. In the mid-1970s Spry left the NFB to focus on production work, founding Telescene and then, upon its bankruptcy in 2000, continuing to work with other production firms in Montreal. Among the films he produced were Léa Pool's À corps perdu (1988), André Forcier's Une histoire inventée (1990), and John Hamilton's The Myth of the Male Orgasm (1993); he was also responsible for a number of television series, such as The Lost World. Other notable works included the 1995 mini-series, Hiroshima, about the events leading up to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which won a Canadian Gemini Award and was nominated for an American Emmy, as well as earlier films One Man (1977), Drying Up the Streets (1978), and Suzanne (1980). Spry died in an early-morning road accident on March 28, 2005 in Montreal, Quebec, leaving behind a son, Jeremy, and a daughter, Zoé, whom he had fathered by journalist Carmel Dumas (from whom he was divorced at the time of his death). The first season of Charlie Jade was dedicated to his memory, as mentioned in the credits of the final episode, as was Air Crash Investigation's episode "Mistaken Identity". Source: Article "Robin Spry" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For

Early 20th-century adventurers find themselves fighting for survival after their hot-air balloon crashes into a remote part of the Amazon, stranding them on a prehistoric plateau.
The Lost World

Tommy is bitten by a werewolf during a camping trip a week before the start of his senior year. After becoming a werewolf, he fights against supernatural entities to keep his hometown of Pleasantville safe.
Big Wolf on Campus

Student Bodies is a syndicated television comedy program that was produced in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 1997 to the end of 1999. While a live-action series, animations are used throughout as thoughts and imaginations. The segments are usually dark and comical. Though the show enjoyed much bigger success in Canada, the show was originally made for the American market under the distribution of 20th Television and aired on many Fox affiliated stations for one year. The show aired in Canada on Global and YTV. It has been called "an imitation of Saved by the Bell" by critics, and featured an ensemble cast of high school students at Thomas A. Edison High School.
Student Bodies

Sirens focused on the work and lives of three rookie female Pittsburgh Police officers. Officer Sarah Berkezchuk is dealing with her failing marriage, Officer Lynn Stanton is a single mom, and second-generation cop Officer Molly Whelan has a bad attitude which starts to interfere with her job. Each rookie officer worked under a veteran cop, and each grows and becomes more focused as a result.
Sirens

Charlie Jade is a science fiction television program filmed mainly in Cape Town, South Africa. It stars Jeffrey Pierce in the title role, as a detective from a parallel universe who finds himself trapped in our universe. This is a Canadian and South African co-production filmed in conjunction with CHUM Television and the South African Industrial Development Corporation. The special effects were produced by the Montreal-based company Cinegroupe led by Michel Lemire. The show started in 2004 and was aired on the Canadian Space Channel. It premiered on the Space Channel April 16, 2005 and aired in Eastern Europe, France, Italy, on SABC 3 in South Africa, on Fox Japan, and on AXN in Hong Kong. The show began airing in the United Kingdom in October 2007, on FX. The Sci Fi Channel in the United States premiered the show on June 6, 2008, but after 2 episodes on Friday prime-time, moved it to overnight Mon/Tue.
Charlie Jade

Christie Dawson always wanted to be the "cool" teacher. But her world is shaken up after a pupil's crush spirals out of control and he sexually assaults her. Suddenly, her colleagues, neighbors and even her hubby are wondering whether she crossed the line and tempted her student. But school isn't out for Christine just yet she's gonna fight back, and big time!
Student Seduction

Former IRA agent Sean Dillon comes to the rescue when a woman discovers a briefcase containing plans that could destroy all of Europe. Dillon's assignment is to protect her until the plans can be properly destroyed.
Thunder Point

Canadian businesswoman Dinah Middleton's is devastated when her teenage son, Alex, is killed by a hit-and-run driver. When the police fail to turn up any suspects, she turns private detective to track the killer down. She traces the murderer to New York, only to discover that the crime is not covered by the extradition treaty between Canada and the US. She becomes obsessed with bringing the criminal to justice.
Hitting Home

Malarek is a film directed by Roger Cardinal in 1989. Ex-juvenile offender Victor Malarek catches a break when he's hired as a cub reporter for the Montreal Star. After witnessing a cop murder a street kid, Malarek dedicates himself to exposing corruption in the social welfare system.
Malarek

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy (he was organizing against apartheid, and left in fear of his life) to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.
On Dangerous Ground

A divorced mother suspects that she and her two children may be in danger because of her insanely jealous new husband
A Cry in the Night

An unhappy married woman has an affair with a violent criminal. She gets pregnant with his baby, but he gets arrested and goes to prison. Now what?
Suzanne

In this socially conscious drama, a TV journalist begins investigating a large factory that has been threatening the health of the children who live in the town's poorest, most polluted section. Because of his investigation, he and his family are threatened by company thugs. He gets no help from his TV station as they are loathe to tangle with big business.
One Man

This film establishes a parallel between the 1970 electoral campaign in Québec and the 1936 campaign dominated by Maurice Duplessis. It shows the hope but also the uncertainty that existed in 1970. Had the Quiet Revolution really changed things in Québec? Was it possible that a new leader would emerge on the political scene? (NFB.ca)
Quebec: Duplessis and After...

Pierre is a Montreal photojournalist who returns from Nicaragua to find that his ten-year menage a trois is over. Haunted by his mid-life crisis, he becomes obsessed with trying to find out why his two lovers, Sarah and David, have left him.
Straight for the Heart

The CIA, KGB and RCMP are after a lady banker (Kidder) who has a piece of mutated microchip that engages directly with brain cells.
Keeping Track

In this tragicomedy, Toni is the director of a staged rendition of Othello in Montreal. It is a pet project of his, financed by his loving mafia uncle. Unbeknownst to him, the audiences are also rounded up (and paid) by the same uncle. Some of them have seen every performance of this tragic play, and are understandably bored, so when the backstage romantic shenanigans of the actors result in absurd situations onstage, the audience is delighted. There are a huge number of romantic situations going on in this film at the same time. One of them involves Gaston a somewhat world-weary jazz musician, and Florence, a glamorous middle-aged woman who has been pining for him for years. Another involves to members of the musician's jazz trio. Yet another involves the play's Desdemona, Soledad, the girlfriend of the man playing Othello, who can't keep his hands off his (female) dresser.
An Imaginary Tale

British soldiers force a recently captured IRA terrorist to cooperate with them and then assign him to go undercover with a gang of terrorists and prevent them from killing the U.S. President. But the spy isn't in long before he realizes that the first plot is but a ruse for a more sinister scheme that could result in trouble between China and Great Britain.
Midnight Man

Based on the novels by Jack Higgins, Sean Dillon is a maverick British agent who uncovers a plot to take over the presidency of the United States. The Windsor Protocol is a list created by Adolf Hitler that will help revive the Nazi party; Dillon must find it before it falls into the wrong hands.
The Windsor Protocol

This fictional feature follows a twenty-something man who is struggling to define his position in the world in early adulthood. He has left their parents' home but still has not made an home of his own. Our protagonist’s alienation is palpable; for him life is a game, not because he chooses to make it so, but because he is unable to make anything more of it. But for those who befriend him and eventually turn him loose again, his game is not enough.