Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Vaitiekunas, Vincent
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Other form(s) of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
-2006
History
Vincent Vaitiekunas(-2006) is a film maker and professor. Born in Lithuania, he studied architecture and opera in Germany after World War II. He immigrated to Canada in 1947, studied at the Ontario College of Art and graduated from Sterndale Bennett's Canadian Theatre School in 1953. In the following years he designed stage sets for theatre companies in Toronto and under the stage name of Vincent Edward he acted in Canadian and British feature films. In 1956, Vaitiekunas became an award-winning professional filmmaker including stints as a film director, editor, screenwriter and producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto, Crawley Films in Ottawa and Toronto, National Film Board in Montreal and Toronto and many other independent Canadian and American film production companies. He has garnered many awards for his work including Silver and Bronze medals at the New York International Film Festival, the Certificate of Merit at Filmex, Etrogs at Canadian Film Awards, and the Diploma of Merit at the Edinburgh International Film Festival ("Explore Expo 67", 1967) He was also chosen to represent Canada's best documentary work in the Salute to Documentary retrospective in Montreal with his film, "Strike". He was appointed a Resident Artist in Film at Simon Fraser University from 1972-1974 and in 1974 he became an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Video, York University. In 1982, Vaitiekunas received the OCUFA Teaching Award given by the Ontario Council of University Faculty Associations. He retired in 1993 but continued teaching part-time until 1999 and has been was named Professor Emeritus of the Department of Film and Video at York.