Editor

Montreal native, Peter Putka received an Emmy award for a public service announcement for Imagine New York, a project of the Municipal Art Society of New York.

The New York Emmy’s are local television’s most highly respected peer recognition award. The winning entries were announced at the 2004 New York Emmy Gala on March 28th at the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

Featuring New York celebrities of the Creative Coalition - Kevin Bacon, Richard Belzer, Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel, Bebe Neuwirth as well as Yoko Ono (who also donated the use of the John Lennon song “Imagine”), the PSA reached out to New Yorkers to give their thoughts on the planning, design and memorializing of the events of 9/11. Imagine New York succeeded in getting input from over 30,000 people across the region.

Putka and his wife Micaéla Birmingham are from Montreal and continue to work both in Montreal and New York on film and commercial projects and are developing an emerging production company based in Montreal, Toronto, and New York City. Putka’s recent screenplay adaptation of the Leonard Cohen Book “The Favourite Game” was released to the big screen in Canada in 2003 and he is currently in the final stages of development with a feature film in Montreal.

The pair took part in the Canada Loves New York event in which thousands of Canadians came down to rally and support New York City in the months following 9/11 and they joined the Montreal delegation which was led by Mayor Gerald Tremblay. It was then that they both knew that they wanted to do something to help the city heal and rebuild itself.

To create this spot for the New York City non-profit organization, the Municipal Art Society, Birmingham and Putka worked tirelessly reaching out to many of the film connections. The 60sec-35mm spot was made with an all-volunteer cast, a crew working pro-bono, and all production and post services were also donated Kodak Canada was instrumental in facilitating the donation of the film used in the spot. All this was accomplished in just 2 weeks!– unheard of in the commercial world where pre-production for a spot of this caliber is done months in advance.

The Municipal Art Society is a private, nonprofit, membership organization whose mission is to promote a more livable city. Since 1893, the Society has worked to enrich the culture, neighborhoods and physical design of New York City. (For more information on MAS contact Micaela Birmingham at 212 935-3960).

For more information on Imagine New York and to see the film:
www.imagineny.org