Paul Tana (born in Ancona, January 8, 1947) is an Italian-Canadian film director and screenwriter.Paul De Léan, "Montreal director Tana rolls the dice with latest effort, La Sarrasine". Montreal Gazette, February 18, 1992. 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.H. J. Kirchhoff, "French-Canadian films steal Genie show: Cronenberg's Naked Lunch leads the pack with 11 nominations". The Globe and Mail, October 14, 1992.
Born in Ancona, Marche, Italy, Tana emigrated to Canada with his family in childhood.Janis L. Pallister, The Cinema of Québec: Masters in Their Own House. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995. . p. 419. He studied literature at the Université du Québec à Montréal before joining the Association Coopérative des Productions Audio-Visuelles,Fuad Alnirabie and Michael Vesia, "Paul Tana and the Italian immigrant experience in Canada". Offscreen, Volume 5, Issue 1 / January 2001. 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.Bruce Bailey, "Film made in Montreal takes prize". Montreal Gazette, January 29, 1986. He followed up with the narrative feature films La Sarrasine in 1992,"La Sarrasine shows that cultural clashes are not something new". Montreal Gazette, February 16, 1992. and Mr. Aiello (La Déroute) in 1998."Sweet 16: The 16th Rendez-vous de Cinema Quebecois embraces the province's multicultural character for the first time". Montreal Gazette, February 20, 1998. This trilogy was made possible thanks to the close collaboration and friendship with historian and screenwriter Bruno Ramirez. with whom he wrote the three films just mentioned.
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.Carole Gagliardi, "Teledomenica's memories". Montreal Gazette, July 3, 2005.
"Ricordati di noi" (souviens toi de nous, edited by the director, who is also a friend and pupil Giovanni Princigalli)Giovanni Princigalli Bari e Montreal e ritorno, di nuovo a casa con il "maestro Paul Tana" is part of a trilogy of short documentaries, also on Italian emigration, consisting of: Souviens-toi de nous in 2008, Marguerita in 2015 and Le figuier in 2018.
In addition to Giovanni Princigalli, he formed a partnership with Roberto Zorfini, another Italian director who had moved to Montreal, producing in 2019 two works with them together with the Italian Cultural Institute in Montreal.3 Portraits of italomontrealesi of yesterday and today, Paul Tana, Gianni and Roberto Princigalli Zorfini show with film images a new page of “Caffè Italia” at the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma 2019
His latest documentary Fellini premières fois tells the story of how Federico Fellini was seen and discovered by Quebec filmmakers and film professionals.
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
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