Skate To Survive Skate to Survive is a one hour documentary about the artistry and struggle of Canadian figure skating coach and choreographer Ellen Burka. The story is told by Ellen at home in Toronto and in Holland in conversation with her long time friends, international skating judge Elsbeth Bon and Louis van Gasteren, Dutch documentary filmmaker. The interviews filmed in Holland are in Dutch and German. The film focuses on the first 44 years of Ellen’s life. We begin with Ellen’s carefree youth in Amsterdam and the thrill of discovering modern dance and figure skating. The challenge of this film was getting Ellen to recall her painful memories of the war stories that she kept hidden for years. She describes the deportation of her family and her own experiences surviving the concentration camps of Westerbork and Theresienstadt. We learn how Ellen met her future husband, Jan Burka in Theresienstadt and how they walked back to Holland to start life over. Despite their successes in post-war Amsterdam, Jan’s survival instincts told him to go to Canada and leave Europe and the Cold War behind. Ellen did not want to leave Amsterdam. Ellen describes her life in Toronto in the 1950’s and 1960’s as a single mother and how she made a career of figure skating despite the prejudices of the time. Ellen hid her war experiences and background from her two daughters until they were 16 and 18 years old. We hear how she coached her daughter Petra to World Figure Skating Champion and revolutionized  the style of skating with her student Toller Cranston. Family photos and  Ellen’s skating scrap books hidden during the war by Elsbeth, recently found film footage of Ellen and Elsbeth skating in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and Super 8  skating movies of Petra and Ellen visually capture the times. Strauss waltzes and music composed for jazz and piano and violin recreate the atmosphere of the past. Ellen Burka received the Order of Canada in 1978 “ for elevating skating to an art form and for imaginative choreography on ice”. Languages: German The Crew  Astra Burka  Director and Producer Astra Burka was born in Amsterdam to a Dutch mother and Czech father. Her family immigrated to Canada in the 1950’s. Originally trained as an architect, Burka became a Production Designer and Art Director for over 40 feature films and television movies. She made her directorial debut with a short film Innocence on Ice in 2004 which premièred at Toronto’s Moving Pictures Festival on Film and Video. where it received an Honourable Mention for direction. “Using minimal resources, this film managed to recreate the innocence of sport from a different time.” Burka has recently completed directing her first full-length documentary Skate to Survive. The film about the early life of her mother Ellen Burka is her first full-length documentary. Astra lives in Toronto and works both as a filmmaker and architect. Michael Kainer Writer and Producer   Michael Kainer was born in Saskatchewan, raised in Tennessee, and educated at McGill University in Montréal and Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. He has traveled extensively and worked in the arts community as lawyer and volunteer. With colleague Astra Burka, he has co-produced  two documentary shorts. Innocence on Ice, which uses black and white archival footage  to portray the beauty of skating.  Succo Pomodori is a colourful depiction of  making tomato sauce in  the back lanes of Little Italy in downtown Toronto. Both received support from Bravo/Fact! and National Film Board of Canada. Skate to Survive is his first full-length documentary. He lives and practices law in Toronto. Zoe Dirse CSC Director of Photography Zoe Dirse’s cinematography career spans near 30 years. She worked for the National Film Board of Canada from 1982 until 1997 and has since been a freelancing cinematographer and director. Her best known films include Forbidden Love which won the 1993 Genie award for best long documentary and Erotica which was nominated for a Genie in 1998. Other of her works include Shadowmaker and Jane Rule: Fiction and Other Truths, both of which were nominated for best documentaries at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. She has shot over 70 documentaries and dramas. Zoe is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. She has  taught at universities in Toronto, Montreal and Buenos Aires. She teaches in the advanced ATVS programme at Sheridan College and freelances in photography.   Thomas Cooper Editor Tom Cooper is a film/video editor with over thirty years of experience. He began his career in 1971 at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where he cut over eighty documentaries, many for the series Country Canada, This Land, Money Makers, Man Alive and the Nature of Things. Since leaving the CBC in 1991 he has continued to edit for The Nature of Things. Other producers and broadcasters for whom he has worked include Vision TV, HGTV, The Life Channel, Real to Reel Productions, Barna Alper Productions, Cineflix and Paradigm Productions. He has edited programmes for The History Channel, CTV  SWR (Germany), PBS (US) and ARTE (France). Several of the documentaries he has cut have been nominated for and received awards both in Canada and internationally. He was awarded the Gemini for Best Documentary Editor in 1989 for the programme Knowing Nose/ The Nature of Things.  Tom  works and lives in Toronto. Peter Mundinger Composer Peter Mundinger has over 15 years experience in composing and performing music in Canadian and international films and television productions. His training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto was in history of music, harmony and counterpoint. He has worked extensively in melding music with computer technology. His work has appeared in projects from television commercials to music for live dance performance to scores for documentary series. In 1997 he received a Gemini nomination for Best Original Music Score for a Documentary Program or Series for Fresh Paint: Birth of a Team, a documentary about the Toronto Raptors basketball team. He has done work for the History Channel, ZDF German television, Global Television, CBC, CITY, CTV and many others. In addition to composing and performing, he has also edited feature films and documentaries. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.   Ellen Burka CM Ellen Burka was the Dutch national figure skating champion, mother, painter, choreographer, Holocaust survivor and coach of  world class skaters, including her own daughter, Petra, who was the women’s world champion in 1965. In 1978, Ellen received the Order of Canada “for elevating skating to an art form and for imaginative choreography on ice”.  She revolutionized the style of figure skating with her pupil Toller Cranston.  She continues to coach in Toronto at the age of 86.   Elsbeth Bon Elsbeth Bon has been  a  friend of Ellen Burka for nearly 80 years. They taught themselves to figure skate in Amsterdam in the 1930’s and both went on to be Dutch figure skating champions. Elsbeth  helped Ellen choreograph Holland’s first ice review in 1947 and became an international skating judge. Her home in Loenen aan de Vecht  is the backdrop for the interviews in Holland.   Louis van Gasteren Louis van Gasteren is a well respected documentary filmmaker who has been making films in Holland and internationally for over 50 years. In his youth he was also an amateur figure skater and friend of Ellen Burka and Elsbeth Bon. His own films have grappled with subjects of survival from the Holocaust.