Paul Tana (born January 8, 1947) is an Italian-Canadian film director and screenwriter.[1] He is most noted for his 1992 film The Saracen Woman (La Sarrasine), which received ten Genie Award nominations at the 13th Genie Awards in 1992 including a nomination for Tana in the Best Original Screenplay category.[2]
Born in Ancona, Marche, Italy, Tana emigrated to Canada with his family in childhood.[3] He studied literature at the Université du Québec à Montréal before joining the Association Coopérative des Productions Audio-Visuelles,[4] for whom he made a number of short films before releasing his debut feature film, Day by Day (Les grands enfants), in 1980.
His 1985 documentary film Caffè Italia, Montréal won the Prix L.-E.-Ouimet-Molson from the Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma.[5] He followed up with the narrative feature films La Sarrasine in 1992,[6] and Mr. Aiello (La Déroute) in 1998.[7]
Since Mr. Aiello, Tana has concentrated primarily on documentary films, most notably the Ricordato di noi project to recover lost footage of Montreal's Italian community newsmagazine television series Teledomenica.[8] He has released two films in the Ricordato di noi series to date, Souviens-toi de nous in 2008 and Marguerita in 2015.
Filmography
- Day by Day (Les grands enfants) - 1980
- Caffè Italia, Montréal - 1985
- Marchand de jouets - 1988
- The Saracen Woman (La Sarrasine) - 1992
- Mr. Aiello (La Déroute) - 1998
- Parole d’artistes - 2003
- Souviens-toi de nous - 2008
- Marguerita - 2015
- Le figuier - 2018
- Fellini premières fois - 2020