By The Canadian Press

Canadian Cinematic Pioneer and Cardston Native Dies at 89

Feb 25, 2016 | 6:37 AM

MONTREAL: A pioneer of Canadian cinema, and native Albertan, who earned two Oscar nominations and inspired the likes of Stanley Kubrick has died at the age of 89.

The National Film Board (NFB) of Canada says Cardston native, Colin Low, died Wednesday in Montreal at the age of 89.

The director and producer worked on over 200 titles during his six decades at the NFB, where he was a groundbreaking filmmaker and head of the animation unit.

Low directed the NFB’s first film to be nominated for an Oscar for best animated short, 1952’s “The Romance of Transportation of Canada,” which won a short film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a special BAFTA Award. The film’s “industrial animation” style was unconventional for the NFB at the time, when Norman McLaren’s auteur model was favoured.

Low earned another Oscar nomination, for his 1957 documentary “City of Gold.” He studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts and the Calgary Institute of Technology.

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The N-F-B says Kubrick’s 2001; A Space Odyssey was inspired by Low’s film Universe. Kubrick ended up using Low’s narrator, Canadian actor Douglas Rain, as the voice of Hal the computer in A Space Odyssey.