Abbey Jack Neidik (born 1947 in Montreal) is a Canadian film director, producer, writer, picture editor, sound editor and cinematographer. He is known for socially engaged films about issues from human rights and cultural identity to mental health and international relations. He has directed, produced, and edited over 70 films, including works that have been recognized with major international awards, broadcasts and screenings. Neidik and his partner Irene Angelico co-founded DLI Productions, a documentary production company based in Montreal.
In 1980, Neidik co-produced and directed Dark Lullabies about the effects of the Holocaust on the next generations of Jews and Germans. Dark Lullabies was the inaugural film at the Stratford Festival Forum, screened at the Berlin Arsenal 70th anniversary of the Holocaust, the Inconvenient Films: International Human Rights Festival in Vilnius, and was selected as one of the 250 greatest films of all times at the National Film Board of CanadaâÂÂs Salute to the Documentary. .
Neidik next directed Between The Solitudes/Entre Solitudes, about the Anglo community in Quebec., followed by The Love Prophet and the Children of God, a look at a controversial religious cult. A Song for Tibet about Tibetans in exile; The Cola Conquest, produced by Neidik, is a three-part series about Coca-Cola as a metaphor for American influence worldwide. Neidik co-produced and directed The Journey Home: A Romanian Adoption,àa film about Romanian orphans a decade after the fall of Ceausescu. He co-produced and co-directed She Got Game, a behind-the-scenes look at womenâÂÂs tennis; Vendetta Song, which examines the tradition of honour killings in rural Kurdish tribes in Turkey; co-produced and directed Unbreakable Minds, which aims to de-stigmatize mental illness; co-produced and co-directed Inside the Great Magazines, a three-part series about the inner workings of the magazine industry; and co-produced and directed Canadaville, USA, about billionaire Frank Stronach's social experiment in rural Louisiana.
In 2013, Neidik co-produced and directed Beyond Earth: the Beginning of NewSpace; Shekinah: the Intimate Lives of Hasidic Women; in 2015 Big Wind, about the effects of industrial wind turbines; and, in 2018, the sequel Shekinah Rising.
Most recently, Neidik co-directed, wrote and produced First to Stand: The Cases and Causes of Irwin Cotler, a documentary about former Attorney General and Minister of Justice of Canada and international human rights lawyer, Irwin Cotler and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. The film premiered on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2022 at the Cinéma du Musée in Montreal, Quebec. The film was screened for the U.S. Congress on the occasion of Cotler receiving the Lantos Human Rights Award.
Neidik was co-editor in the publication of The Aftermath: A Survivor's Odyssey Through War-Torn Europe.