Ron Mann

Ron Mann is one of Canada’s foremost documentary filmmakers. He directed his first documentary feature, Imagine the Sound, at the age of twenty-two. This idiosyncratic look at avant-garde jazz won an award for Best Documentary at the Chicago Film Festival, as did his follow-up, Poetry in Motion. Those two early films established the predominant focus of Mann’s entire output – marginalized or neglected cultural movements. Despite the apparently apolitical surface of his films, his work is profoundly committed to social and cultural issues. Mann has devoted much of his career to critiquing the ongoing conservative campaign to turn back the advances of the 1960s. In this sense, his work clearly bears the mark of his mentor, the radical American documentary filmmaker Emile de Antonio. Other awards include a Genie for Best Feature Length Documentary for Comic Book Confidential which also picked up a Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film and Video Awards. Grass also won a Genie Award for Best Documentary. His 2014 documentary about famed American filmmaker Robert Altman had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and then opened in Toronto. These are his credits as a Director.

Official website
Also see: Homegrown Truths: Ron Mann’s Grass Lights a Torch For Reefer Sanity

Features & TV Movies:
VR indicates Direct-to-Video Release

Flak (1976)
Depot (1978)
The Only Game in Town (1979 – with David Fine)

Imagine the Sound (1981)
Poetry in Motion (1982)
Echoes Without Saving (1983)
Listen to the City (1984)
Marsha Resnick’s Bad Boys (1985)
Comic Book Confidential (1988)

Twist (1992)
Dream Tower (1992)
Grass (1999)

Go Further (2003)
Blue Rodeo: In Stereovision (VR-2004)
Tales of the Rat Fink (2006)
Know Your Mushrooms (2008)
Flak (2009)

In The Wake of the Flood (2010)
Altman (2014)
Carmine Street Guitars (2018)

Audiophilia: Adventures in the World of Hi-Fi (2022)