MICHAEL KOT
Michael Kot has co-founded Cantina Media, a new production company based in Toronto, Canada.
Michael Kot is a Canadian television producer and entrepreneur known for his leadership, integrity and creative collaborations with worldwide producers garnering award-winning returning series and documentaries.
He has recently co-founded Cantina Media with Producer Betty Orr. His productions have received numerous Canadian Screen Awards, and his former company, Saloon Media, was included in the Global 100 by Realscreen magazine.
A native of Kingston, Ontario, Michael studied film and psychology at Queen’s University. He later studied production with Norman Jewison at the Canadian Film Centre.
After graduating, Michael joined CBC Radio, then worked in the Children’s TV department. Things moved quickly for Michael at that time, and he became part of the start-up team of Canada’s first all-news network, CBC Newsworld, where he was the driving force behind some of Newsworld’s early flagship factual programming including The Passionate Eye, Ideas on Camera, Future World and On The Arts. He also produced many live specials and event programs.
Craving new challenges, Michael left the CBC to pursue New Media and long-format documentaries. During this time, he produced the first-ever CBC federal election and Olympic websites, established the Hot Docs website, revamped the Ideas and Vision TV websites, as well as worked on an experimental VOD news service called the Personal News Network (PNN). He also worked on the federal budget presentation to parliament.
Michael also had the opportunity to work with Michael Mclear on his documentary The End of Television as well as produce the inaugural program launching the Discovery Canada channel.
For CBC Rough Cuts, Michael produced and directed his own documentary, Let Freedom Ring, filmed over the course of a year at a Toronto middle school facing socio-economic challenges with integration, crime and violence. The unique film reflected the intersect and contrast between young students’ daily lives and their dedication to writing and then performing an opera under the direction of the Canadian Opera Company.
Michael then got a call to help with the start-up of History Television in Canada. While working as a producer on the History start-up team, as well as on Showcase for Alliance Television, Michael also got called to help on the launch of documentary Channel for CBC.
Meanwhile he kept working on his independent projects leading him to co-found Storyline Entertainment. He co-produced Aftermath: The Remnants of War (2001) with Peter Starr and Ed Barreveld.
Aftermath: The Remnants of War, an ode to the book of the same name by Donovan Webster, won the Canadian Screen Awards’ (CSA) Donald Brittain Award for Best Social / Political Documentary Program in 2002. In 2004, Michael’s film, Shipbreakers, that he both directed and co-produced (with Starr and Barreveld), won the Golden Sheaf Award for Best Director in the Yorkton Film Festival, as well as the Golden Sheaf Award for Best Nature / Environment Documentary.
He also directed and edited Age of Iron, a short film inspired by Shipbreakers. Shipbreakers helped bring greater attention to the environmental disaster that is the world's largest maritime graveyard in Alang, India. It was co-produced with the National Film Board of Canada, CBC / The Nature of Things, National Geographic Channel International.
Michael left Storyline to work as a production executive for History Television originals. Actively involved in the creation and launch of History Television, he shepherded the channel through various ownership transitions, making the History Television brand one of the most successful specialty channels in Canada. As VP Original Factual Content for Canwest (now Shaw Media), Michael was responsible for factual content on Global Television, History Television, Mystery and National Geographic Canada. In 2010, Michael left Shaw Media for Entertainment One, becoming Senior VP Factual Entertainment, responsible for eOne’s original factual programming.
Michael, overseeing original factual programming for the company’s television group, worked with his team to create and produce several series and blue-chip one-offs including Perfect Storms (HISTORY, UKTV), Brainwashed / Dangerous Persuasions (HISTORY / Slice / Lifetime Canada and Discovery ID US), and D-Day to Victory / Last War Heroes with Impossible Pictures (HISTORY and Channel 4). Blue-chip documentaries included 28 Heroes, Storming Juno, The Great Escape: Secrets Revealed (with Wildfire Television for HISTORY and Channel 4), and The Great Martian War (with Impossible Pictures for HISTORY Canada and UK).
In 2013, Michael founded Saloon Media with partners Steve Gamester, Betty Orr, and Paul Kilback, producing hundreds of hours of award-winning factual television for world markets.
“Our focus is on premium programs with international appeal,” said Michael at the time of his company’s launch. “But beyond that, we look for stories relevant to the world we live in and inform the world we want to live in.”
Early Saloon projects included Mummies Alive (HISTORY, Smithsonian, ZDF and UKTV), 13 incredible seasons of See No Evil with Arrow Media for Discovery ID, the eight-part documentary series Hunting Nazi Treasure (HISTORY, More4, AHC), and Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer, a groundbreaking docuseries about the Ted Bundy murders as told from the POV of women, produced for Amazon Prime Video.
In 2018, Saloon Media was acquired by Blue Ant Media and Michael continued to run Saloon as Managing Director until 2024.
Saloon’s long list of projects also included 9/11 Kids (documentary Channel), winner of the CSA’s 2021 Donald Brittain Award for Best Social / Political Documentary Program; Life Below Zero: Canada (Cottage Life), nominated for Best Docu-Series at the 2021 Banff World Media Festival; Inside the Statue Wars (CBC / CBC Gem), nominee of the CSA’s 2024 Donald Brittain Award for Best Social / Political Documentary Program; Witches of Salem (Travel Channel, T+E), nominated for the Best History Documentary Program or Series CSA in 2021; the multiple CSA-award-winning Canada’s Drag Race (with awards including Best Reality / Competition Program or Series in 2021 and 2023); and the 2021 CSA Best History Documentary Program or Series nominee Cheating Hitler: Surviving the Holocaust (HISTORY).