About
Our story
Artesian Films was founded in 1989 by Tamás Wormser. We often explore simple but universal subjects across time and culture to reveal their physical, emotional, spiritual and social dimensions: Faces of the Hand is a visual journey that looks at the hand as a mirror to human nature, and Touched by Water is a documentary on water rituals around the world.
The paths of active idealists also fascinate us. Extraordinary individuals have inspired several films, such as Step Up!, about a young dancer’s journey from losing a foot to dancing with Baryshnikov, and the theatrically released Travelling Light, following five nomadic artists’ remarkable lives.
We have produced films in other genres as well: fiction, such as The Ring, The Hat and Prometheus, and dance films like the seven episodes of The Three Marias. The poetic Hand to Hand was commissioned for the Vancouver Winter Olympics to be viewed by a vast public. Our films have been seen on all continents and have won dozens of international festival awards.
Our most recent work includes Shalom Putti (2022), seven years alongside a Jewish community in Uganda and the Orthodox rabbis who came to meet them, the short documentaries Bukharian Fire and Specifically, Maurice El Medioni (both 2021), and, as co-producers, Under the Château’s Roof (2015). In production now is Images Between Us, a feature documentary on photojournalist Antal Wormser and three generations of images, filmed in Canada and Hungary and planned for 2027.
Thirty-plus years, film by film
The filmmaker
Tamás Wormser
Tamás Wormser was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. In 1986 he moved to Canada, where he completed the Film Production program at Concordia University. He began his career as a theatre director.
In 1989 Wormser founded Artesian Films. His first professional work was The Three Marias, a series of seven feminist-themed dance films shown on Canadian and Hungarian television. His documentary Faces of the Hand was broadcast in over 40 countries and received widespread critical acclaim.
In 1998 he made the fiction film The Ring. His festival favourite Step Up! followed a dancer, having lost a foot, to dance with Baryshnikov; CBC’s Magazine, ZDF ARTE and others presented it. In 2003 he completed The Ball of Their Lives, and in 2006 Touched by Water, shot in 13 countries on bathing traditions and water rituals.
His 2008 production, the “charming and intoxicating” Travelling Light, is a theatrical documentary on modern-day nomadic artists. It won several awards, just like Hand to Hand, the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad short viewed by millions around the world. In 2014 he completed The Wandering Muse, a feature documentary and website exploring Jewish identity through the music of the diaspora. His latest feature, Shalom Putti, on an Orthodox Jewish community in Uganda, was released in 2022 and has won several awards.
Tamás is presently developing several documentary and fiction projects, among them Images Between Us.
Who we work with
Broadcasters
- CBC
- Radio-Canada
- Bravo!
- ARTV
- Omni TV
- SCN
- ARTE
- ZDF
- 3sat
- Documentary Channel
Funders
- Canada Media Fund
- Telefilm Canada
- SODEC
- Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
- Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
- National Film Board
- Canada Council for the Arts
- FACTOR
- CTF
Press
- The Globe and Mail
- Toronto Star
- Le Devoir
- American Libraries
- The Gazette
- National Post
- Mirror
- The Hour
- Voir
- CBC Radio
- Video Librarian
- M/C Journal
- Arte Magazine
- McGill Tribune