He’s from Kitimat and this music video director continues to make a name for himself on the national and international stage.
Stephano Barberis has been nominated as director of the year for the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) awards.
The award ceremony is broadcast on September 13.
Barberis is already a multiple-award winning director for music videos, reaching to the 60s for number of nominations he’s had through CCMAs in the past.
He assures everyone though that it’s a surprise every time.
“I sweat blood in to every project,” he said. “It’s just me stressing out over the project and trying to make it look really great and when it does get a nomination I’m always shocked.
“I look at it in terms of art and I just do my best.”
The videos that earned him the nomination for director of the year includes songs by artists Small Town Pistols, Bobby Wills, and, naturally, Kitimat-raised country singer Aaron Pritchett.
The Pritchett song Boat on the Water is the pair’s 10th video collaboration, and Barberis says it was their first two music videos which actually launched both of their careers. Their friendship is rooted in their time in Kitimat.
“We went to Kildala Elementary together and we used to walk home from school together,” Barberis remembers.
Kitimat isn’t at all forgotten by the director.
Barberis isn’t shy to say that he frequently reads up on local news and even dedicates time to town ‘planning’, creating plans for future town
expansion.
If you ever see him ask him what he thinks the District should do with the 150 acres of Minette Bay land donated from RTA. He has ideas. An abundance of them.
A second career in local economic development will have to wait though.
Barberis continues to be busy directing music videos and he has some coals in the fire to develop feature-length motion pictures.
In 2013 he also produced a set of electronic-genre music videos which were designed in response and opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines proposal.