| Damian Pettigrew | |
|---|---|
| Born | Damian (Damien) Pettigrew Québec, Canada |
| Occupation | filmmaker, screenwriter, author |
| Years active | 1982 - present |
| Height | 188 cm (00 in) |
| Awards | UNESCO Grand Prize - Best Documentary 1997 Balthus Through the Looking Glass Lausanne IFAF Prize - Best Photography 1997 Balthus Through the Looking Glass Prix Arte Nomination - Best Documentary 2003 Fellini: I'm a Born Liar Marseille IFF Award - Coup de Coeur 2003 Fellini: I'm a Born Liar Banff World Television Festival Rockie Award - Best Arts Documentary 2003 Fellini: I'm a Born Liar |
Damian (also Damien) Pettigrew (born in Quebec) is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, author, and multimedia artist, best known for his cinematic portraits of Balthus and Federico Fellini. He won a Banff Rockie Award for Best Documentary and was nominated for the Prix Arte at the European Film Awards, Europe's equivalent of the Oscars.
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Pettigrew's mother was a child psychologist who trained with Anna Freud at the Hampstead Child Therapy Course in 1947. His father, Dr. J.F. Pettigrew, was the first Canadian surgeon to diagnose the heart condition known as aortic coarctation in 1953.[1]
After reading English, French and Italian Literature at the universities of Bishop's, Oxford, and Glasgow (where he discovered the work of Scottish film director Bill Douglas), Pettigrew studied cinema at IDHEC in Paris. At the Cinémathèque Française, he met Brion Gysin and Steve Lacy and began frequenting their artists' circle. If his work is influenced by Gysin's celebrated cut-up technique, the profound and lasting effect on his life was his friendship with Samuel Beckett. After Beckett's death in 1989, he settled in Paris to devote himself to filmmaking (in particular, writing, directing, and editing).[2]
In 1999, Pettigrew founded the film production company, Portrait et Compagnie, with French producer Olivier Gal. He spends a short part of each year on Lake Memphremagog in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.[3]
A recognized authority on Federico Fellini, his portrait of the maestro, Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, won the prestigious Rockie Award at the 2002 Banff World Television Festival, receiving excellent reviews in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek International, Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, l'Unità, The Herald, The Telegraph (London), and newspapers throughout Europe, Brazil, Australia and Japan. Nominated for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, Europe's equivalent of the Oscars, the film established his reputation as a director of "extraordinarily controlled" feature documentaries.[4]
Other films include portraits of Eugène Ionesco, Italo Calvino, and Jean Giraud. His Balthus Through the Looking Glass, a study of the controversial French painter, was filmed in Super 16 over a 12-month period in Switzerland, Italy, France and the Moors of England. Esteemed by Guy Davenport,[5] it was honored in a cycle of film classics by Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, and Jean Vigo at the Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany) in September 2007.[6]
In 2010, Pettigrew directed MetaMoebius, a cinematic essay on French graphic designer Moebius aka Jean Giraud for the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain and CinéCinéma Classic. His documentary, The Irene Hilda Story, based on the European cabaret tradition during the Second World War as experienced by French stars Irene and Bernard Hilda, was broadcast in France and Germany by ARTE France that same year.[7]
He recently completed Inside Italo (Lo specchio di Calvino), a feature-length study of Italo Calvino for ARTE France in co-production with Italy’s Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali[8] and the National Film Board of Canada.[9] Starring Neri Marcorè as the famous Italian writer, the docu-fiction uses in-depth conversations filmed at Calvino's Rome penthouse a year before his death in 1985 and rare footage from RAI, BBC, and INA (Institut national de l'audiovisuel) television archives. The film's theatrical release is slated for 2012.
In development are two feature films: Darkness Visible starring Tim Roth and Eriq Ebouaney,[10] and Beckett, based on the director's experience working with Samuel Beckett.
This bibliography is focused on the published interviews that were filmed, produced and directed by Pettigrew in collaboration with the following artists:
UNESCO Grand Prize - Best Documentary
Lausanne International Festival of Art Films - Best Photography Prize
European Film Awards Prix Arte Nomination - Best Documentary
Marseille International Film Festival Award - Coup de Coeur
Banff World Television Festival Rockie Award - Best Arts Documentary
Member, The Society of Multimedia Authors of France (SCAM) and The Society of Authors of France (SGDL)