Paul Saltzman

Paul Saltzman has been passionate about life as far back as he can remember. In 1965 he left Canada to do voter registration work in Mississippi with Stokely Carmichael and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). While he was there, he was attacked and jailed. He began his media career at the National Film Board of Canada (production manager, assistant director) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (public affairs story-editor and on-air host). In 1967 he interviewed American inventor and visionary Buckminster Fuller, who would later say that Saltzman changed his assessment of the '60's generation.

Early in 1968 he learned meditation at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in India. It was a profound experience that changed his life. During his time there, he met, hung out with and photographed the Beatles, Mia Farrow, Donovan and Mike Love. Saltzman was second-unit director and production manager on the first IMAX film, commissioned for the Osaka 1970 World's Fair. When shooting was completed, he went for a quiet visit to what was then advertised as a "small music and arts festival." It took place at Max Yasgur's farm in Woodstock, N.Y. in the summer of 1969. In the early '70's he produced a Leonard Cohen live concert tour, and in 1972 produced and directed his first film, a half-hour documentary on Bo Diddley. The next year he founded Sunrise Films Limited, and for the following decade made many award-winning documentaries. In 1983 Saltzman produced and directed the premier of HBO's Family Playhouse and a special for PBS's American Playhouse. In the same year, he co-created and produced the family action-adventure television series Danger Bay. The hit show ran for six years. Since then he has won two Emmy Awards producing television series like My Secret Identity, Matrix and Max Glick. He co-produced the feature film Map of the Human Heart, starring Jason Scott Lee, Anne Parillaud, Patrick Bergin and John Cusack, and executive produced Martha, Ruth & Edie as well as Sam & Me, which received an Honourable Mention in competition for the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Saltzman is currently developing several feature film scripts, including the Paul Robeson story. He has also optioned the film, video and related CD-ROM rights to the Vatican Library. He loves traveling, skydiving and scuba diving, and plays ice hockey several times a week.