Vic Sarin, Producer

A passionate and diverse filmmaker, Vic Sarin is one Canada's most distinguished Directors and Cinematogaphers with over 150 films to his credit including award winning feature films, documentaries and Emmy Award winning television movies. With more than thirty years of experience as a Director of Photography, Vic has received numerous accolades including the prestigious Kodak Lifetime Achievement Award for having created some of Canadian cinema's most moving and memorable images. His celebrated work in feature films such as Margaret's Museum, Whale Music, Bye Bye Blues, Dancing in the Dark and On My Own have earned him world renown as one of Canada's premier cinematographers. Vic then turned his eye toward directing, where he is known for his unique storytelling ability that seamlessly weaves together the emotional and visual aspects of a film. Vic's films also have a distinct visual texture; a rich look and larger than life feel enhanced by his many years spent behind the lens. As a Director, Vic has won recognition for films such as the feature film Cold Comfort starring Maury Chaykin and Paul Gross which garnered five Genie (Canadian Academy Award) nominations including Best Picture. He received an Emmy nomination for his acclaimed television movie In His Father's Shoes starring Lou Gossett, which received a total of five Emmy nominations including Best Direction and took home two awards including Best Picture and Performance. His television movie Sea People starring Hume Cronyn, was also nominated for four Emmy Awards including Best Direction and Best Film and won a Writer's Guild of America Award amongst others. Vic also continues to contribute as Director of Photography for many of the films he directs.

Vic Sarin was born in Kashmir and spent his teenage years in Australia where his father was a diplomat. It was here where his love for the cinema was born. Originally wanting to pursue a career as an actor, Vic felt his accented English could stand in his way. Knowing his son's passion for the cinema, his father fortuitously gave Vic a 16 mm camera for his 16th birthday and Vic found his niche. As he tells it "I fell in love with the visual side of storytelling, because movies transcend all barriers, pictures are understood in every language. I felt that as an artist and a storyteller, it was through images that I could create something unique that would touch people and move the heart or provoke a thought."

Vic has had extensive experience in filming overseas, particularly in India where he shot the features Bye Bye Blues, and The Burning Season and directed numerous documentaries including the acclaimed documentary series Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World for which he also received Emmy Award recognition. Vic has also recently returned from Shanghai where he has just wrapped up directing and creative producing the high concept television series Flatland starring Dennis Hopper.

Partition (2007) is a film that that deals with issues close to Vic's heart, written from stories and experiences that Vic has both heard and witnessed first hand. As Vic tells it, the film is: "An epic Romeo and Juliet love story between a Sikh and a Moslem, during the last days of the British Raj. Set on the vast canvas which is India, amidst the turmoil of the 1947 partition, it is a compelling opportunity to give the film a larger than life quality, and one that will make accessible to the world's film viewers the beauty, complexity and humanity of this part of the world. It is my hope that it will also and shed a little light on the conflict still going on today. Though the setting is in India, the subject is universal and something that many people the world over will appreciate.