Goldi Productions Ltd. is owned by husband-and-wife team, Joan Goldi and John Goldi csc, long-time Canadian filmmakers, who are outdoor enthusiasts, naturalists, and history buffs.

Joan and John Goldi csc have traveled to many parts of Canada over the last 30 years to make international award-winning films and television programs covering a wide range of topics, including outdoor subjects, survival training, the North, First Nations people, social issues, Canadian history, geography, engineering, science, and environment.

Goldi Productions has won 136 international Awards and Honours
(including 41 Platinum, Gold and Silver Medals) for its film, television,
and video production work, in competition with the best producers and productions from around the world.

Joan and John started as high school teachers, served as CUSO volunteers in East Africa for two years, taught in Toronto high schools, and spent 14 years in Canada's North West Territories, first as teachers in remote Inuit and Dene communities for six years, and later as filmmakers in Yellowknife, NWT.

They traveled all over the north, in every season of the year by canoe, boat, small plane, snowmobile, and dogsled. They often traveled  with Inuit and Dene families on extended trips in all seasons, on camping trips that involved hunting expeditions for caribou, seals, bear, and geese. They frequently lived in tents at -40 Celsius, and shot from helicopters - with the door off -  in the Arctic in January and February.

They moved their office back to the Toronto area in 1988, and since then have traveled across Canada several times shooting and producing Canadian programs for television and Canadian Government departments.

All the programs produced by Goldi Productions Ltd. have been aired on television. Canadian broadcasters include CBC Network and regional broadcasters, Radio-Canada, History Television, The Discovery Channel, Life Network, ACCESS Alberta, BC Knowledge Network, and the Saskatchewan Communications Network. Programs produced for television have been seen in many countries.

Go to Our Documentary Innovations 1

Go to Our Documentary Innovations 2

As well, we are pleased that hundreds of educational film and video professionals from hundreds of Boards of Education and Public Libraries from across Canada, have placed countless copies of our films and videos about Canada and Canadians in thousands of schools and libraries across Canada, helping us to fulfill our company motto:

More copies of our Canadian heritage and outdoor safety films and videos can be found in Canadian schools, libraries, government, and corporate offices than those of any other Canadian documentary producer.

Producer/Screen Writer/Special FX Avid and Final Cut Pro Editor: Joan Goldi:

As Producer, Joan Goldi has done the coordination of production for all Goldi Productions projects.

She has done the principal research and writing on almost all the film and video productions done by Goldi Productions since 1979.

Joan Goldi pursued university studies leading to an Hon. B.A. in Geography, and a B.Ed., at the University of Toronto.

Unlike the vast majority of other producers - who hire talented people to work for them - she has done indispensable "hands on" craft work, in the field, and in the editing suite, on every production she has ever done.

As well as being a highly experienced computer geek - she bought the first IBM PC in 1981 - she keeps our company's 5 production computers humming, and our Avid and FC Pro suites in tip top shape.

She alone keeps the huge web of Goldi Productions internet websites functioning technically.

She had TWO... Suzuki had One, CBC Witness had One, Discovery had One: At the world's largest science documentary festival, hosted by the French Service of the CBC, in Montreal, PQ, Joan Goldi was the only English-language producer (out of 27 from around the world) to have TWO programs "Selected for Show," both from her cable television series "Outdoor Adventure Canada."

"A terrific documentary! Just a terrific documentary! Absolutely fascinating!" - on "The Saskatchewan Will Never Die" by Ron Santora, Program Director, PBS Buffalo, WNED.   Go to Program Innovations Go to What Her Viewers Said

Far from being just a superb techie, she is also a talented Avid and Final Cut Pro Editor, and has done all the special effects, titling, supers, and credits for all Goldi Productions programs.

Joan has served as a juror in the script writing and documentary categories, for selecting Canada's Best, for the Genie Awards.

Above on the battlefield at Fish Creek, Saskatchewan, in her usual role in approving a shot, or when she shoots her cinematographer husband when he is doing an on-camera hosting piece.

Below the reverse angle where her husband did his standup, overlooking the battlefield. The Canadian troops of General Middleton swarmed down the hills on the immediate left, as the Métis and Indians who were dug in along the right side of the creek fired up at them.

Director/Cinematographer: John Goldi csc.

John Goldi csc has shot all our programs (since 1978) including the much-praised videography featured in "Outdoor Adventure Canada."

(See below)

(The 'csc' designation is the top honour bestowed by the Canadian Society of Cinematography, the national association of professional film and television cameramen, "for outstanding achievement as a cinematographer".)

John has served as a juror for the CSC's annual documentary cinematography awards and was also a juror for the Genies which honour the Best in Canadian Theatrical Motion Pictures.

(Picture of Red-throated Loon, shot by John Goldi csc, on cover of CSC's monthly magazine. He has been a photographer since February, 1953, when he took his first photograph. If you want to see it, and the camera he used, click below.)

Go to the Making of a Master Cinematographer

Executive, Off and On-line Avid & FC Pro Editor: John Goldi has edited all Goldi Productions films and videos since 1979 (over 100 programs). He was the Supervising Editor on the 26 part series, "Outdoor Adventure Canada" and did the recut, finecut, and the video and audio post-production and onlines for all programs in that series. He did all the music editing.

Writer: As the offline and online editor, John Goldi is constantly re-writing scripts to make personalities, picture, sound, and music fit better together.

On pet projects, like "The Boer War" and "Ipperwash," he was the lead writer.

He is the author of the "Canadian Anglo-Boer War Museum" and "theCanadasite.com."

SOME RECENT FEATURE PROJECTS:

Coming Back Alive series of programs, shot across Canada to promote outdoor safety and survival in all seasons for everyone who works or plays on land or or the water, outdoors

Ipperwash: A Canadian Tragedy, a one-and-a-half hour season opener for CBC's the Passionate Eye, in 2005, on the police shooting, in 1995, which resulted in the death of Dudley George, the only Canadian killed by police in a land claims dispute in the 20th century.

For many months after September 1995, we were the only media allowed inside Camp Ipperwash.

As a direct result of our personal intercession, on December 8, 1995, the Ontario SIU (Special Investigations Unit) agreed to reopen its investigation into the police shooting, just the day before it was to hold a press conference announcing it was closing down the file with no charges being laid against any policeman.

We insisted the SIU reopen the file, offering to be facilitators in communication with the people inside beleaguered Camp Ipperwash - where all the principals involved in the shooting were, the overwhelming number of whom the SIU had never talked to.

The SIU agreed to our offer, and cancelled their scheduled press conference for December 11.

When we got the SIU officers cleared to enter - the first government people allowed inside the camp in over five months - we filmed them doing their work.

As a direct result of their new investigation, charges were laid against a police officer for illegally shooting and killing a First Nations protester, Dudley George.

Only then did the other media became interested again, in reporting on the Ipperwash story.

For the previous nine months the media had bought and propagated the police line that "the Indians had shot first and we only returned fire in self-defence."

As a journalist, who later got a medal for his stories on Ipperwash, told us, more than a little defensively, "You can't really blame us for the blinders and the lapse. You know, we journalists depend heavily on the police for access and for scoops. We didn't want to jeopardize that."

Systemic Racism: So for the previous nine months the First Nations men, women, and children of Ipperwash had been vilified, by the media - overwhelmingly white - and as a result, by the public at large, as little more than rowdy Indian thugs who got exactly what was coming to them.

We are proud that without our direct intervention there would have been no charges laid against any police officer, there would have been no court case - where the judge ruled the police had deliberately killed Dudley George and many officers were lying on the stand - and no Ipperwash Inquiry into the shooting. And no resulting announcement that the Indians had no guns, were not guilty of anything, while conversely the police had shot without provocation and lied to cover up the fact.

Web site produced - The Canadian Anglo-Boer War Museum

Web site produced - Canada's First People series

Web site produced - TheCanadaSite.com

Web site produced - Coming Back Alive

Web site produced - Revenir Vivant

"THE CANADA BOER WAR CENTENNIAL PROJECT" which includes:

- Production of a four hour special documentary: "The Great Anglo-Boer War: The Canadian Experience", commissioned by HISTORY TELEVISION to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Canada's first ever military expedition overseas to fight in a foreign war.

- Production of a web site to remember Canada's participation in the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa.

This is one of the few television projects selected by the Canadian Government's Millennium Bureau to become a Canadian Millennium Partnership Project to celebrate Canada and Canadians at the start of a new Millennium.

In an unheard-of accomplishment, Joan and John Goldi did all phases of production on the four hour television series, from research, writing, location work, and shooting, and all the offline and online editing, of picture, voices, effects, and music.

Go to Four International Gold Medals

We thank our project sponsors and participants for allowing us to pursue our primary passion:

For this program we did the most exhaustive research ever done on Canada's Boer War sites in South Africa, spending two months and driving 11,000 kms to all the places Canadians fought there from 1899-1902.

We were amazed to discover that after 100 years there was still no Canadian signage of any kind, on any of these locations. We submitted a massive proposal to Parks Canada, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board, and to Sheila Copps, Minister of Canadian heritage to rectify this situation.

We were pleased to receive a personal letter from Stéphane Dion, Minister of Canadian Heritage, notifying us that as a result of our initiative the Canadian Government would post the first Historic Sites and Monuments signs at locations we had suggested.

They will become Canada's first Historic Sites & Monuments historic markers on the African Continent.

Go to Stéphane Dion's Letter

Go to Our South African Discoveries