ABOUT TAMARACK PRODUCTIONS

Tamarack Productions has been producing award-winning documentaries since 1989. Its first production, the documentary series As Long As The Rivers Flow, has been broadcast and distributed around the world. The series garnered over twenty international awards, including The Public Jury Award at The Nyon Documentary Film Festival and the Producer's Award at The American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.

Since its inception, Tamarack Productions has worked to establish a solid reputation as a provider of critical, fair-minded documentaries about social justice, history and politics.

JAMES CULLINGHAM M.A.

FILMMAKER, EDUCATOR, WRITER, BROADCASTER

Photo by Peter Atto

James Cullingham is an educator, award winning documentary filmmaker, a widely published writer and seasoned national broadcaster. He is journalism program coordinator and a professor at Seneca College in Toronto and has served as an executive producer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). His documentaries concerning social justice, politics, history and popular culture have been screened around the world. Cullingham has been published by Canada’s leading newspapers and magazines. He appears as a guest on a number of Canadian public affairs and cultural television programs.

Cullingham was born in Toronto in 1954. He grew up there, in Florida and Switzerland where he completed high-school. He is a doctoral candidate in history at Toronto’s York University. He is currently writing his dissertation, Scars of Empire: A Juxtaposition of Duncan Campbell Scott and Jacques Soustelle. He passed doctoral comprehensive examinations with distinction in 2006. In 2005, Cullingham earned a Masters degree in history at the University of Toronto where he garnered the Best Part-Time Student Award. He completed his undergraduate studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario with an Honour's Degree in Native Studies and French. He is fluent in French and has a working knowledge of Spanish. He is an accomplished wilderness canoeist and avid hiker.

Email James Cullingham

In 2007, Cullingham’s Tamarack Productions released Dishonour Defied, directed by Azra Rashid about the Pakistani activist Mukhtar Mai. The film won the Sivler Remi Award for Women’s Issues at WorldFest The Houston International Film Festival.

In 2005, Cullingham released the documentary film Lessons in Fear in association with Seneca College. The film takes an unprecedented look at the education of Israelis and Palestinians. In October 2005, the film was screened at the Calgary International Film Festival. In April 2004, Cullingham wrote and narrated Lessons in Loathing a feature radio documentary on the subject for the program Dispatches on CBC Radio One.

Festival Express , a documentary feature on which Cullingham served as story consultant and makes a brief appearance, was released theatrically in major Canadian and American cities in the summer of 2004. In September 2003, the film had an acclaimed world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It celebrates the amazing train tour that Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, The Band, Buddy Guy and other musicians took across Canada in the summer of 1970.

In February 2000, Cullingham completed a two year assignment as a producer for CBC-TV/Radio-Canada's Canada: A People’s History.

In March 1999, he directed The Megantic Outlaw, a documentary about the legendary Donald Morrison for BBC Scotland.

 In 1997 Cullingham directed and produced We Have Such Things At Home, a documentary film about Canada 's relationship with South Africa over native policy. It was first screened at the Montreal World Film Festival in August 1997. It has been broadcast in Canada , France and southern Africa .

In 1994-5 he directed and produced Duncan Campbell Scott :The Poet and The Indians. This film about the Canadian poet and Indian Department bureaucrat responsible for Canada ’s notorious residential schools was co-produced with The National Film Board of Canada.

James Cullingham, Executive Producer, CBC Radio 1987-1990

In 1990, Cullingham founded Tamarack Productions to co-produce As Long As The Rivers Flow, a five-part documentary film series on aboriginal rights in Canada . Produced in association with the National Film Board, the series won 15 international awards, including the Public Jury Award at the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival in Switzerland , a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Producers Award at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco . The series has been televised on five continents and screened at international venues such as the Sundance Film Festival and Le musee de l'homme in Paris .

In 1983, Cullingham began his career at CBC as a producer with CBC Radio's Current Affairs department. As documentarist for Sunday Morning he covered a range of national, international and cultural stories. After a stint with Peter Gzowski at Morningside, in 1987 Cullingham was named executive producer of As It Happens, CBC Radio's celebrated current affairs program. He returned to Sunday Morning as Executive Producer in 1989.

AWARDS