Northernstars video interview with Paul, Toronto June, 2012

(June 11, 2012 - Toronto, Ontario) This interview was a year in the making. In 2011, Northernstars contacted Paul Almond to ask if he would be in Toronto in the near future and if there would be a chance to talk with us him about his career and what he's been doing these past many years. Although we learned that he would in fact be in Toronto, the timing, as it often is in this business, was terrible. As it turned out we just couldn't pull together a crew on those days when Mr. Almond had a few hours to spare. We were disappointed but promised to keep in touch and over the past year that's exactly what we did.


In late April of 2012 we began to confirm the dates when Mr. Almond would be stopping in Toronto on his annual trek from his home in California to his Canadian home in Shigawake on the Gaspé peninsula. With enough time to plan we arranged to videotape an interview in May. Northernstars Contributing Editor Wynhdam Wise had last interviewed Paul Almond for Take One Magazine in 2004 and quickly agreed to do so again for us.

In this first of a short series of exclusive interviews, Paul Almond talks about what he has been doing since making his last film. 

To watch the interview: please go to:
http://www.northernstars.ca/directorsal/almond_paul_2012_interview.html

7Up! Letter to The Independent June 9, 2012

LETTER TO THE INDEPENDENT

Beginning of an historic TV show

I was pleased that your reporter called Seven Up! "the most remarkable documentary series in television history" (28 April). It is gratifying for me as the original creator and director that this film served the purpose for which I conceived it: documenting the lives of children, and thereby pointing up some of the class differences, which Australian Tim Hewatt, then head of World in Action, and I, as a Canadian, found in the England of 1963. But several misstatements in your article regarding Michael Apted's role in the first film in the series need to be addressed.

Your reporter says that Mr Apted "only wishes he had taken a more female-friendly approach when going about the project". But he had no role in "going about the project" other than, as stated later, being a first-time researcher. I chose children for the film. And for the record, I did in fact feature girls in quite a few scenes.

"Apted had originally found his 14 children in three weeks." Gordon McDougall (whose name was unfortunately excised from the credits after I left England) was a researcher on an equal footing with Mr Apted. They both found children for me to make my selection.

But I do I think it's wonderful that Mr Apted has done these follow-up films so that we can see what's happened over the years.

Paul Almond

Shigawake, Quebec, Canada