history

Clearwater is an internationally recognized and globally oriented documentary production company, whose co-founders have deep roots in the Canadian Northwest. Tom Radford, who has built a distinguished 35-year career as a Writer, Director and Producer from Edmonton, Alberta, was born to a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper family that came to the province in 1905. His partner Niobe Thompson, an anthropologist and filmmaker, grew up in the Cree community of Wabasca in northern Alberta, the son of wooden canvas canoe builders.

The company’s traces its origins back through Radford’s many accomplishments as a western Canadian filmmaker. When Arctic Dreamer won a Gemini for Best Documentary Biography in 2004, it marked the tenth time his films have won national or international honours at festivals around the world. Arctic Dreamer also won the coveted Chris Award for Best Social Issues Documentary at the Columbus Film Festival. Radford has earned the Best Director prize at the Alberta Film Awards on six separate occasions, most recently in 2006 for his two-hour special on the music of the province, Alberta Bound.

Over the years, Radford has been a pivotal figure in the developing Canadian film industry. As a Canadian National Film Board Executive Producer, he founded the NFB Northwest Studio in Edmonton in 1980. During that period he produced over 20 films, including the early work of artists as diverse as Anne Wheeler and Gil Cardinal. Foster Child, produced with Gil Cardinal, won a Gemini in 1988. Wood Mountain Poems, produced with Harvey Spak, won the Best Arts Documentary Award at the Banff Television Festival. The Renewable Society was a 26-part television series produced for the NFB Challenge for Change Program with renowned urbanist Peter Boothroyd.

Radford’s still photography has appeared in the National Gallery of Canada. He is the author of two books, including the bestselling Alberta, A Celebration. He has sat on the board of directors of the Banff Television Festival, was a founder of the National Screen Institute, and is a member of the Advisory Council to the Historica Foundation. A founding partner in Film Frontiers, Filmwest Associates, Great North Productions, and finally Clearwater Media, Radford has been deeply involved in the building of a communications industry in the West. His contributions to Canadian culture recently let to an Alberta Award of Excellence presented by Peter Lougheed, former Premier of Alberta.

Niobe Thompson joined Tom Radford to found the new Clearwater in 2007, bringing his experience as an Arctic anthropologist and human rights worker in Africa, South Asia, and Siberia. With a doctorate from the University of Cambridge, he has published on the global trade in light weapons, diamonds and insurgency in West Africa, and rebuilding judiciary systems in post-conflict states. After five years of research in the Russian Far North, Thompson published Settlers on the Edge in 2008.