Biography
Ezra Soiferman, born in 1972, is a documentary film and TV producer and director based in Montreal, Canada.
He graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1994 with an honors B.F.A in Film and TV Production. There, he directed numerous short films and videos, including Pressure Drop, his senior thesis film.
An 18-minute 16mm comedy, Pressure Drop, co-directed by Ezra Soiferman and Los Angeles filmmaker Marc Ostrick, won awards and appeared at over eighteen international film festivals. The film was the recipient of a Warner Bros. Pictures Production Award at NYU and in 1998 toured 20 US cities.
While at NYU, Ezra held internships at Jim Henson Productions, Limelight Films, TeleVest and Turtleback. After graduating, he produced and directed videos in New York for companies including Reebok and Ralph Lauren Polo For Boys.
Upon returning to Montreal in 1995, Ezra served as Assistant to the Director of Creative Affairs at Robin Spry's Telescene Film Group. In 1996, he left Telescene to co-found Perpetuum Productions with filmmaker Adam Steinman. (Steinman left Perpetuum in 1998 and currently works in TV production in New York City.) For Perpetuum Productions, Soiferman and Steinman produced videos for the Ottawa Board of Education, Canon, Travelodge and The March of the Living.
Perpetuum's first documentary, Tree Weeks, is a quirky 44-minute film produced and directed by Soiferman and Steinman and edited by Mika Goodfriend. It examines the obscure phenomenon of entrepreneurial young Quebecers who sell Christmas trees on the streets of Manhattan. The film had its premiere at the 1998 Montreal World Film Festival and aired on CBC Newsworld's "Rough Cuts", Radio-Canada, RDI and MetroChannel.
In January 1998, Ezra was featured as a Quebecer of the Year on the cover of Quebec's L'Actualite magazine. In June of that year, he was selected as the media category winner of the Tribute to Successful Quebec Anglophones sponsored by the Montreal Gazette and CJAD Radio.
In 1998 and 1999, Ezra served as Producer of Eat My Shorts!, the short film festival division of the Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. In 2000, he directed episodes of the Life Network/CBC/PBS documentary series Dogs With Jobs. One of the episodes he directed was featured on Oprah in June, 2000.
Man Of Grease is a fifty-minute documentary profiling Tony Koulakis, owner/chef of legendary Montreal greasy-spoon, Cosmos Snack Bar. The film, produced and directed by Ezra and edited by Mika Goodfriend, was shot in Montreal and Greece and premiered to three sold out audiences at the 2000 Montreal World Film Festival. It subsequently won awards and was featured at eight other film festivals in Canada and the USA. The film has shown on TVOntario, Air Canada, Montreal's CFCF-12, the B.C. Knowledge Network, CBC's Country Canada Channel, CBC-Montreal's Distinct Docs series and CBC Newsworld's "Rough Cuts" series. Man Of Grease was nominated for a Quebec Jutra Award for Best Documentary.
In 2000/2001, Ezra produced, directed and hosted Burlyvision, 13 episodes about the world of short filmmakers. The show, edited by Mika Goodfriend, aired on The Burly Bear Network (now National Lampoon TV), at the time America's largest college TV network and owned by Lorne Michaels (Saturday Night Live, Conan O'Brien), and broadcast to over 550 US colleges.
In late 2001, Ezra served as an additional director for three episodes of the Emmy and Gemini award-winning Global/BravoUSA documentary TV series, Cirque Du Soleil: The Fire Within. In late 2002, he went to Quebec City to film behind-the-scenes footage of Peter Gabriel for the documentary Growing Up On Tour by Anna Gabriel.
In 2003/2004 Ezra directed six episodes of the Global/Prime documentary series Past Lives which has Canadians retracing their genealogical roots. In April 2004, he served as cameraman on the behind-the-scenes DVD for the summer 2005 New Line Cinema comedy King's Ransom.
In fall 2004, he directed Voila Montreal, a short French-language documentary for the TV5 Network about Montreal from the point of view of an Iranian cab driver. He also directed a 3-DVD set for Lipton and Just For Laughs called Bowl Of Laughs. In December 2004, Ezra's short Slidewalk aired on CBC-Montreal's nightly news show, CanadaNow.
In January-June, 2005, Ezra served as Segment Producer on CBC Newsworld's new 20-episode series Au Courant, hosted by Quebec icon Mitsou Gelinas. The nationally broadcast English-language show examines the news and culture of the week in Quebec and the rest of French Canada. In June, 2005, he directed a series of 6 TV spots for Montreal's Segal Centre for Performing Arts.
Ezra is also the producer and director of Cod Help Us, a new half-hour CBC/NFB funded documentary about the dire fishing crisis in St. Paul's River on Quebec's Lower North Shore. In January, 2006, the film premiered in the U.S. at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival and is being distributed on DVD by the National Film Board of Canada and can be seen online at NFB's CitizenShift web site.
In December 2005, Ezra joined a team of filmmakers to shoot Too Hot To Handle, a multimedia climate-change event hosted by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki.
In 2004, Ezra co-founded the Montreal Film Group, a film and TV industry networking group now comprising over 2000 members. He serves as the MFG's Director. In January 2007, the MFG was featured on the cover of the Montreal Mirror as one of the "Noisemakers of 2007".
During summer 2006, in addition to directing six new CBC-Montreal TV spots for Montreal's Segal Centre for Performing Arts and a legacy documentary for Clay's Pharmacy in Montreal and Winnipeg, Ezra served as documentary cameraman on the behind-the-scenes DVD documentary for the upcoming New Line feature Journey To The Center Of The Earth starring Brendan Fraser and shot in Montreal.
Ezra's latest documentary is Posthumous Pickle Party. The whimsical 46-minute documentary features a motley group of Simcha's Grocery Store customers who return to the famous institution on Montreal's St-Laurent Boulevard to pay tribute to the late Simcha Leibovich and eat his very last batch of homemade dill pickles. The film - conceived by Matt Zimbel, filmed and directed by Ezra, edited by Andrew David and featuring music by klezmer/hip-hop maestro Socalled - played to an over-capacity sold out crowd at the October 2006 Film Pop Festival. In February 2007, Posthumous Pickle Party played to a sold out crowd at Montreal's NFB Cinema as part of the Rendez-vous du Cinema Quebecois festival. The film won the City of Montreal Prize at the 2008 Eurofest Film Festival aired on Canal D in December, 2007.
In February 2007, as part of his Hemp For The Homeless project, Ezra distributed 50 'hemp help kits' (food, soaps, clothing, etc.) to homeless shelters and individuals throughout the city of Montreal. The project was featured on CBC Radio and the Montreal Gazette.
From March to Occtober, 2007, Ezra worked at the Pop Montreal International Music Festival as the co-producer of the Film Pop section which took place October 3rd to 7th, 2007.
The Socalled (Josh Dolgin) promo video Ezra filmed and directed was featured in the top spot as the YouTube 'Featured Video of the Day' on May 22, 2007. The video, edited by Mika Goodfriend, features klezmer/hip-hop wunderkind Socalled on stage in Montreal in 2006 and 2007.
Between May, 2007 and June, 2010, Ezra created and served as Director of CinemaSpace at The Segal Centre for Performing Arts, a 77-seat screening room for independent films, film festivals and community groups. The cinema was the world's first to feature eco-friendly hemp-covered seats.
Ezra is an official 'Hemp Fuelled Filmmaker' sponsored by Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods & Oils.
