Oscar-winning Vancouver-based filmmaker John Zaritsky dies
The documentarian explored complex subjects such as thalidomide, Huntington’s disease, war, and assisted suicide in his vast body of work
John Zaristky. Photo via the Times Colonist.
PROLIFIC FILMMAKER JOHN ZARITSKY died on March 30, according to a release issued by his wife, Annie Clutton. He was 79 years old when he experienced heart failure at Vancouver General Hospital.
Born on July 13, 1943 in St. Catharines, Ontario, the respected artist had a career that spanned more than four decades.
In 1982, he won an Academy Award for his documentary Just Another Missing Kid. The film told the story of Marilyn and William Wilson, whose son, Eric, disappeared during a car trip from Ottawa to Colorado. Expecting empathy and quick action from the police, they were met with indifference, incompetence, and bureaucracy from Canadian and American authorities and they eventually had to hire a private investigator to find out their son’s fate.
Zaristky covered the plight of families considering genetic testing for Huntington's disease in Do You Really Want to Know?; singer and former Vancouverite Carla Zilbersmith’s experience with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, in Leave Them Laughing; and men facing their greatest fears in Men Don't Cry: Prostate Cancer Stories, which he shot shortly before being diagnosed with the disease himself.
He explored war (Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo), assisted suicide (The Suicide Tourist); and criminals Rapists: Can They Be Stopped. The New York Times called Murder on Abortion Row—about the trial of John Salvi, who was charged with killing two women and wounding five others in attacks at two Brookline, Massachusetts abortion clinics in 1994—“a remarkable, heart-wrenching film”.
Zaristky shot the playful Ski Bums in Whistler; captured some of Canada’s top singers recording the single “Tears Are Not Enough” for Ethiopian famine relief in A Different Drummer; and spotlighted the Royal Canadian Air Force's aerobatics flight demonstration team, the Snowbirds, in The Real Stuff, with music by David Foster.
According to Clutton, Zaritsky’s most voracious search for truth was in his investigative work and filming of the scandal and tragedy behind thalidomide —the worst drug disaster in history— and the trilogy he left behind to expose it, Broken Promises; Extraordinary People; and No Limits: The Thalidomide Saga. No Limits shed shocking light on Grünenthal (formerly Chemie Grünenthal), the German pharmaceutical company behind the drug: Thalidomide had its origins in Nazi Germany.
“Zaritsky shared complex stories that most filmmakers steered clear of,” Clutton said in the release. “In doing so, he revealed difficult questions and circumstances that people were forced to face, and gave voice and empowerment to survivors, along with an effective nudge to audiences to examine their own life and that of others a little more honestly and humbly.”
In addition to his Oscar, Zaritsky received more than 40 industry and major film festival awards, including seven Gemini Awards, a Hot Docs Special Jury Award, Cable Ace Award, Whistler Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, and several Emmy and additional Gemini nominations.
His work has been broadcast in 35 countries and screened at more than 40 film festivals around the world, including Sundance, TIFF, VIFF, IDFA in Amsterdam, Hot Docs,, and South by Southwest. Zaritsky taught documentary studies at the University of British Columbia and as Artist in Residence at Berkeley.
Zaritsky is survived by his and Clutton’s family: Errin and Bern Lally and grandchildren Imogen and Reid. His greatest joys were spending time with them, as well as travelling, sharing stories with friends, and his late-in-life discovery of English football.
He had been working on chapter outlines for his memoir prior to his death. The day Zaritsky died, he told Clutton: "'I am one fucking lucky guy.”
"In his memory he would like you to do two things,” Clutton said. "Take a friend out for a beer or two, and watch a locally-made documentary and allow your life to be changed a little.”
Celebration of life events will be scheduled in Vancouver, Toronto, and Whistler.
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