Nationality Canada | Name Robert Lang | |
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Occupation Producer, director, Kensington Communications Inc. Genre documentary, factual television Notable works Museum Secrets, Raw Opium, Diamond Road, The Sacred Balance | ||
Robert Lang is a Canadian film producer, director, writer. He began his career in Montreal working at the National Film Board of Canada as a documentary film director and camera operator in the mid-1970s. In 1980, he moved to Toronto, where he founded his own independent production company, Kensington Communications, to produce documentaries for television and non-theatrical markets. Since 1998, Lang has been involved in conceiving and producing interactive media for the Web and mobile devices.
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Career
Robert Lang's work in television includes a number of documentary and factual series: Museum Secrets, a 22-part television series that investigates the stories behind artifacts in great museums around the world for History, UKTV and BBC Worldwide; Shameless Idealists, a five-part series that profiles a number of prominent change-makers and social activists for CTV; Diamond Road, a three-part series about the diamond industry for TVO, ZDF Arte and Discovery Times; The Sacred Balance, a four-part miniseries for CBC and PBS based on the book by geneticist and environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki; 72 Hours: True Crime, a true crime factual series for CBC and TLC; and Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science, a forensic crime series hosted by Graham Greenefor Discovery and TLC. In 2013, he co-created and was executive producer on a mobile app to enhance your museum experience at the Royal Ontario Museum called ScopifyROM.
In 2015, Lang produced a one-hour documentary for TVOntario and CPAC exploring young peoples’ relationship to voting called The Drop: Why Young People Don't Vote.
In 2015-16, Lang produced The Equalizer, the first of two one-hour documentaries, coproduced by Kensington TV and Berlin Producers for broadcast on CBC’s The Nature of Things, SRC Explora and ZDF/Arte. His next documentary is a point-of-view piece for TVOntario and Canal D, called Risk Factor.
He has been responsible for several documentary films, including: as producer, co-writer of Raw Opium, which examines the failure of the War on Drugs through the lives of people involved in the international opium trade (TVO, ZDF Arte, SBS); as director, writer, producer of Return to Nepal, in which renowned musician Bruce Cockburn travels to the remote Humla district of Northwestern Nepal (CBC documentary); as co-writer / director, producer of Almost Home: a Sayisi Dene Journey, an intimate portrait of a Canadian aboriginal community in transition for CBC Nature of Things and APTN; River of Sand, which explores the ancient culture, popular music, and current struggles of the people of Mali, West Africa for Vision TV and TVO; Separate Lives, the Gemini-winning documentary which follows the lives of conjoined twins from Pakistan and the pioneering operation that gave them a chance at a new life for Discovery; The Biggest Little Ticket, a children’s musical fantasy special for CTV which won several awards; and Mariposa: Under a Stormy Sky, a documentary music special for CTV.
Lang's work in film and television has garnered a number of national and international awards (see Awards section below for details). He's also been active in the production community as a founding member of the Documentary Organization of Canada, as a board member for The Real News since 2007 and as the founder of the Hot Docs CrossCurrents Fund in 2013.