Paul Cowan has never been one to shy away from controversy. His NFB film, GIVE ME YOUR SOUL (2000), offered an inside look at the strange world of the commercial porn industry. Cowan chronicled the rise and fall of renegade billionaire Robert Campeau (DOUBLE OR NOTHING, 1992), followed Dr. Henry Morgentaler on his controversial abortion crusade (DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL, 1984), dramatized Donald Marshall's landmark battle against the Nova Scotia justice system (JUSTICE DENIED, 1989), and stirred up a storm of debate in the Canadian Senate with a hotly contested docudrama about First World War flying ace Billy Bishop (THE KID WHO COULDN'T MISS, 1983). He also wrote, directed and edited GOING THE DISTANCE, the official film of the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1980. Cowan is the writer and director of WESTRAY (2001), a moving account of the Westray coal mine disaster, which killed 26 men in Nova Scotia on May 9, 1992. His most recent film for the NFB is THE PEACEKEEPERS (2005). a documentary covering one of the UN's peacekeeping missions from 2002 to 2004. The film flips from the political struggle of UN officials, to the life and death struggles of the country they are trying to save from itself - the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Nominated for Documentary (Features) 1979: GOING THE DISTANCE - Producer (w. Jacques Bobet) 1 nomination