IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.
Peter Wintonick, director, producer, film editor, writer, director, journalist, and advocate, was a one-of-a-kind figure in the Canadian film industry. Wintonick started out as a precociously talented editor on commercial features before committing himself to documentary filmmaking. He became a highly regarded director-writer-producer and a mentor to numerous young filmmakers, as well as a globetrotting advocate and ambassador for socio-political documentaries. Involved in more than 100 films and media projects, he was perhaps best known for Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992). [The Canadian Encyclopedia]