Notable Canadian Directors
The greatest Canadian directors who have worked primarily in Canada. For more information, see the following Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Canada#Directors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Canada#Directors
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- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Paul Almond's television and movie productions have won numerous awards, including: 12 Canadian Film Awards (Genies), 3 Ohio State Awards and other international awards
In 2001, Paul Almond was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for having "demonstrated an outstanding level of talent and service to Canadians".
In 2007, the Director's Guild of Canada presented Paul Almond with their Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions to Canadian film and television.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
One of Québec's most politically aware filmmakers, Denys Arcand studied history at Université de Montréal, where he co-directed Seul ou avec d'autres (1962) with Denis Héroux and co-written with Stéphane Venne. He joined the National Film Board (NFB) in 1963, where his feature-length documentary on the textile industry, On est au coton (1970), was so controversial it was suppressed for 6 years. He made another fine documentary, Québec: Duplessis et après... (1972), before leaving the NFB for the private sector. La maudite galette (1972), Réjeanne Padovani (1973) and Gina (1975) were distinctive views of Québec society, original and provocative. All 3 used the gangster film as a source while distorting many of its conventions. He then moved to TV, scripting the Duplessis (1978) series for Radio-Canada and directing 3 episodes of Empire, Inc. (1983). He returned to the NFB to make a documentary on the 1980 referendum, Le confort et l'indifférence (1982), which revealed growing cynicism about the political process. It won the Québec Critics Prize.
He returned to commercial filmmaking after a hiatus of 10 years with The Crime of Ovide Plouffe (1984), before achieving major success with the scathing comedy about sexual mores, The Decline of the American Empire (1986) (The Decline of the American Empire), a film that won numerous prizes, including the prestigious Critic's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The New York Film Critics voted it Best Foreign Film in 1986 and it won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 1987 Genies. It was also nominated as Best Foreign Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. Jesus of Montreal (1989) confirmed Arcand's international reputation, winning the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It won 10 Genies, including Best Picture and Director, and was nominated in the Best Foreign Film category by the Academy. Arcand then moved into English-language production in an attempt to break into a larger international market. Love and Human Remains (1993), his first feature in English, was followed by Stardom (2000), a film that looked at the world of fashion. Neither achieved the subtlety and texture of his earlier work.
The overwhelming success of The Barbarian Invasions (2003), which marked both a return to the French language and to the characters who had peopled The Decline of the American Empire (1986), showed that Arcand had lost none of his powers of observation. The film won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival (best screenplay, and best actor for Marie-Josée Croze), Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and the prestigious Oscar for Best Foreign Film. In 2005 Arcand was named Companion of the Order of Canada, which recognizes individuals for exceptional achievements of national or international significance.- Art Department
- Animation Department
- Director
Frédéric Back was born on 8 April 1924 in Saarbrücken, Germany. He was a director, known for The Man Who Planted Trees (1987), Crac (1980) and The Mighty River (1993). He was married to Ghylaine Paquin. He died on 24 December 2013 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Jean Beaudin was born on 6 February 1939 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He was a director and writer, known for J.A. Martin photographe (1977), Souvenirs intimes (1999) and Le matou (1985). He was married to Domini Blythe and Manon Béatrice. He died on 18 May 2019 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Louis Bélanger was born in 1964 in Beauport, Quebec, Canada. He is a director and writer, known for Post Mortem (1999), Gaz Bar Blues (2003) and Vivre à 100 milles à l'heure (2019).- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Charles Binamé was born in 1949 in Herve, Belgium. He is a director and actor, known for Le coeur au poing (1998), The Rocket (2005) and Elephant Song (2014).- Director
- Actor
- Producer
A leading Canadian filmmaker, Phillip Borsos has enjoyed considerable success in international markets. One of the "Vancouver School", he began his career as a director (and sometime producer and writer) with several short subjects, beginning with Cooperage (1976). Nails (1979), which Borsos also produced, was nominated for an Academy Award as best documentary (short subject). His feature film debut, The Grey Fox (1982), made when he was 27, received critical acclaim, and won the Canadian Genie awards for both best film and best direction. However, the making of the $18 million Bethune (1990), a Canada - China co-production, was marked by financial and other difficulties. Borsos did not get to make the final cut and the film itself is often considered not to go beyond hagiography. Similarly, when his backers withdrew, Borsos had to stop his filming of John Irving's novel, The Cider House Rules. From 1994, Borsos continued his career as director despite an ongoing battle with leukemia.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Michel Brault was born on 25 June 1928 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Of Whales, the Moon, and Men (1963), Orders (1974) and Threshold (1981). He died on 21 September 2013 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Donald Brittain was born on 10 June 1928 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He was a writer and director, known for Fields of Sacrifice (1963), Memorandum (1966) and Dreamland: A History of Early Canadian Movies 1895-1939 (1974). He died on 21 July 1989 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Gary Burns was born in 1960 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is a director and writer, known for Waydowntown (2000), Kitchen Party (1997) and Radiant City (2006).- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Advertising studies at the Ecole des Beaux-arts de Montreal. Start the book edition company 'Les Editions de l'hexagone' with the poet Gaston Miron where he wrote litterature and cinema's reviews. In 1955, he began working in graphic arts at Radio-Canada still writing reviews in some newspaper. He is engaged as a researcher at the Office national du film du Canada in 1960. It's not long before he becane a director (1961) in documentaries. He create his first fiction film in 1964 with a short film Solange dans nos campagnes. He likes working with his consort as his leading actress; ex. Carole Laure or Chloé Sainte-Marie- Sound Department
- Director
- Writer
Marcel Carrière was born on 16 April 1935. He is a director and writer, known for O.K. ... Laliberté (1973), The Battle of St-Denis... Yesterday, Today (1970) and Bois-Francs (1966).- Director
- Cinematographer
- Editor
Jack Chambers was born on 25 March 1931 in London, Ontario, Canada. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Hart of London (1970), Little Red Riding Hood (1965) and Hybrid (1967). He died on 13 April 1978 in London, Ontario, Canada.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
- Cinematographer
F.R. Crawley was born on 14 November 1911 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He was a producer and director, known for The Loon's Necklace (1949), The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975) and Great Lakes (1942). He was married to Judith Crawley. He died on 13 May 1987 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father's path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent film-making and in Canadian television programs.
Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based Scanners (1981) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical The Brood (1979). Cronenberg become a sort of a mass media guru with Videodrome (1983), a shocking investigation of the hazards of reality-morphing television and a prophetic critique of contemporary aesthetics. The issues of tech-induced mutation of the human body and topics of the prominent dichotomy between body and mind were back again in The Dead Zone (1983) and The Fly (1986), both bright examples of a personal film-making identity, even if both films are based on mass-entertainment materials: the first being a rendition of a Stephen King best-seller, the latter a remake of a famous American horror movie.
With Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991), the Canadian director, no more a mere genre movie-maker but a fully realized auteur, got the acclaim of international critics. Such profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society are prominent in the provocative Crash (1996) and in the virtual reality essay of eXistenZ (1999), both of which well fared at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. In the last two film projects Spider (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), Cronenberg avoids expressing his teratologic and oneiric expressionism in favor of a more psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Fernand Dansereau was born in 1928 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for La brunante (2007), Doux aveux (1982) and Les Porteurs d'espoir (2010).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Xavier Dolan was born on 20 March 1989 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is an actor and producer, known for I Killed My Mother (2009), Tom at the Farm (2013) and Heartbeats (2010).- Cinematographer
- Director
- Editor
Georges Dufaux had been born in Lille, in the North of France. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the cinema section of the Paris National Academy of Photography and Cinematography. In 1953, soon after obtaining his diploma, he left France for Brazil. In Rio, he worked with Alberto Cavalcanti, managing the labs of the Companhia Industrial Cinematografica. In 1956 he moved another time, this time to Quebec, where he was hired by the National Film Board of Canada, where he was to work for next twenty-five years as an assistant camera, camera operator, cinematographer, editor, writer and director. His career was long and fruitful, his art of lighting and framing giving the films he contributed to or signed or co-signed himself a distinctive quality. Georges Dufaux died in Switzerland on 8 November 2008. His brother, Guy Dufaux, also emigrated to Canada where he too became a talented cinematographer, editor and director.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Christian Duguay was born in 1957 in Outremont, Québec, Canada. He is a director and assistant director, known for Human Trafficking (2005), A Bag of Marbles (2017) and The Art of War (2000).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Born in Egypt to Armenian parents, he was raised in Western Canada. Both his parents were painters, and he planned to be a playwright, but after making a short film, he became hooked on telling stories visually. Returned to ethnic "homeland" when he filmed Calendar (1993) in Armenia. Won attention at the Sundance Film Festival for earlier work, then broke through critically and commercially with Exotica (1994). Afterwards, The Sweet Hereafter (1997) led him to receive two Academy Award nominations, and then Chloe (2009) became his biggest moneymaker ever (after the film's DVD/Blu-ray release).- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Robert Favreau was born on 9 July 1948 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is a director and writer, known for Portion d'éternité (1988), A Sunday in Kigali (2006) and Les muses orphelines (2000).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Thom Fitzgerald: Since his 1997 feature debut, Thom has won over two dozen international awards including the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Award (Genie), The FIPRESCI European International Critics' Prize, The Emerging Master Award at the Seattle International Film Festival, and the Reader Jury of the "Siegessäule" Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. He won both the Best Canadian Film Award and the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Thom is a three time premiere guest of The Sundance Film Festival, and has been lauded abroad with the City of Grandola Prize at the Troia Film Festival in Portugal, and the Best Screenplay Prize at the Mar del Plat Film Festival in Argentina. He was awarded both the Best Screenplay Award and the Most Popular Film Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Thom was cited as "One of the top 100 filmmakers in the world" by Screen International and "One of the Top Ten of the Next Generation" by the Hollywood Reporter. Thom was nominated for The Directors Guild of Canada Award and won the Best Director Award at the Atlantic Film Festival for "3 Needles". In 2012 Thom was awarded the prestigious Portia White Prize which is the highest honor awarded to an artist by the government of Nova Scotia recognizing artistic excellence. For his theatre work he won the Merritt Award for Best New Play (CLOUDBURST) and was nominated for Outstanding Set Design. CLOUDBURST was also nominated as Outstanding Production of 2010.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
André Forcier was born on 19 July 1947. He is a director and writer, known for A Wind from Wyoming (1994), Une histoire inventée (1990) and Coteau rouge (2011).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Beryl Fox is known for The Mills of the Gods: Viet Nam (1965), Three on a Match (1963) and The Single Woman and the Double Standard (1964).- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
François Girard was born in Quebec in 1963. Best known for his movie writing and directing (Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould, The red Violin, Silk...), Girard also directed a number of plays and operas including PARSIFAL at the Metropolitan Opera. He also wrote and directed two Cirque du Soleil shows; Zed and Zarkana.
In 1993, his feature film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould would go on to garner international success including four top Genie Awards. Five years later he directed The Red Violin which received an Academy Award for best original score and enshrined Girard as an important player on the international movie scene. The film also won eight Genie Awards and nine Jutra Awards. SILK, which he directed, was adapted from Alessandro Baricco's best-selling book, and was released worldwide in 2007 and received four Jutra Awards.
Girard's 1994 concert film Peter Gabriel's Secret World became a best selling film and earned him a Grammy Award. A few years later he directed one of the six episodes of the internationally acclaimed series Yo-yo Ma Inspired by Bach.
In 1997, François Girard made his opera directorial debut with Oedipus rex / Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky and Cocteau which received numerous awards and was named by The Guardian "the best theatrical show of the year. Other opera works include Lost Objects for the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Wagner's Siegfried; the Flight of Lindbergh / Seven deadly Sins from Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht; as well as Kaija Saariaho's Émilie. His most recent opera work is Parsifal which earned him and the Metropolitan Opera Company a remarkable critical success.
For the stage, Girard also directed Alessandro Barrico's Novecento; Kafka's Trial and Yasushi Inoue's Hunting Gun. He is currently working on a new production of Waiting for Godot.
Girard is a three-time winner of the much-coveted Herald Angel Award for Best Production at the Edinburgh Festival.
In recent years, Cirque du Soleil's commissioned Girard to write and direct ZED, their first permanent show in Tokyo; and Zarkana which opened at Radio City Music Hall, played at the Kremlin Theatre and has become a resident show in Las Vegas.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Master degree in Literature at the Universite de Montreal. Three years of teaching at the Addis-Abeba University. Back at Montreal 1957 working in advertising. Office national du film du Canada in 1958. Founder of the cultural periodic 'Liberte'in 1959. First movie direction in 1962. Jacques Godbout: at the same time a well known novelist, 'Salut Galarneau', making fiction movies, from a thriller like _Gammick, La (1974)_ to a parody musical _IXE-13 (1971)_; and a poet working also on documentaries on the culture Paul-Émile Borduas (1962), on the communication Feu l'objectivité (1979) (1979) or on identity usurpation like Alias Will James (1988) (1988).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
John Greyson was born in 1960 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a director and writer, known for Lilies (1996), Zero Patience (1993) and Fig Trees (2009).- Editor
- Director
- Writer
Gilles Groulx was born on 30 May 1931 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was an editor and director, known for Où êtes-vous donc? (1969), Entre tu et vous (1970) and Au pays de Zom (1983). He died on 22 August 1994 in Longueuil, Québec, Canada.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
He finished his medical studies at the age of 22 to please his parents, but he was already developing an attraction to the visual arts and to cinema. As a teenager, he had made two shorts with Michel Brault. In 1953, he wrote a television script. He joined the Office national du film du Canada (National Film Board) in 1954. After his first feature film was made in 1958, he went to France, where he worked with both François Truffaut and Jean Rouch. In the 1960s, he became involved in the 'cinema direct' movement, once again back in Quebec. In 1971, he directed My Uncle Antoine (1971), nearly unanimously believed to be his best work, as well as one of the greatest works of the Canadian cinema. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Jutra worked mostly in Toronto, where funding was easier come by. He began to suffer from a severe case of early-onset Alzheimer's and, given his knowledge of the condition due to his medical training, chose to take his own life. Just as the character he created in Take It All (1963), Jutra drowned himself in the freezing waters of the St. Lawrence River. His body was not recovered until the following spring.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Ron Kelly was born on 11 June 1929 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is a director and writer, known for Waiting for Caroline (1969), The Megantic Outlaw (1971) and Anthology (1959).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Larry Kent was born on 27 June 1933 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a director and writer, known for The Hamster Cage (2005), She Who Must Burn (2015) and Mothers and Daughters (1993).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Allan King was born on 6 February 1930 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was a director and producer, known for Dying at Grace (2003), Warrendale (1967) and Avonlea (1990). He was married to Colleen Murphy. He died on 15 June 2009 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Producer
- Cinematographer
- Director
Wolf Koenig was born on 17 October 1927 in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He was a producer and cinematographer, known for Stravinsky (1965), City of Gold (1957) and Lonely Boy (1963). He died on 26 June 2014 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Roman Kroitor was born on 12 December 1926 in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was a producer and director, known for Universe (1960), Stravinsky (1965) and Lonely Boy (1963). He died on 16 September 2012 in Québec, Canada.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Editor
Jean-Claude Labrecque was born on 19 June 1938 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. He was a cinematographer and director, known for À hauteur d'homme (2003), Infiniment Quebec (2008) and André Mathieu, musicien (1993). He was married to Louise Ranger. He died on 31 May 2019 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Arthur Lamothe was born on 7 December 1928 in Saint-Mont, Gers, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le silence des fusils (1996), Bûcherons de la Manouane (1963) and La neige a fondu sur la Manicouagan (1965). He died on 18 September 2013 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Micheline Lanctôt was born on 12 May 1947 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is an actress and director, known for Sonatine (1984), Pour l'amour de Dieu (2011) and The Handyman (1980). She was previously married to Marshall Chrostowski.- Animation Department
- Art Department
- Director
As a teenager, Ryan Larkin studied at the Art School of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts under the tutelage of Arthur Lismer, and clearly showed sharp talent for character and figure drawing. In the early 1960s, he was hired by the National Film Board of Canada, and was immediately recognized by NFB's Norman McLaren as one of the brightest new artists in that organization. Norman personally took Ryan on as a protégé; and gave him the resources to create two animated short films: Citérama (1966) ("Cityscape") in 1963 and Syrinx (1965) in 1964. The latter film won worldwide recognition and propelled Ryan to even more ambitious projects.
Ryan's next film, Walking (1968) ("Walking"), gave him not only recognition but celebrity. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He was given write-ups in Time Magazine and called the "Frank Zappa or George Harrison of Animation" by the Montreal Gazette. Ryan's next film, Street Musique (1972), further cemented his star status at the NFB. At this point Ryan began his downward career spiral. He was to make no more films at the NFB, and resigned in 1978. By this time he was a cocaine addict and heavy drinker, and was unable to hold down any work in animation or any other profession. During a period of over a decade, which he describes as a "haze," Ryan lost all his artwork, all his sculptures, all his animation materials, all his money. For a year he lived homeless on the streets of Montreal, only recently finding a home in the Old and begs for spare change from passersby in front of Schwartz's Restaurant on Montreal's Boulevard St. Laurent.
After the release of Ryan (2004) he started to try to get back on his career again. He quit drinking and stopped using cocaine, and even produced a few short bumpers for MTV. However, it was too late: Ryan Larkin died on February 14th, 2007, victim of a lung cancer that spread all the way to his brain, putting an end to one of animation's most peculiar personalities.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Lauzon came from a humble family and he worked in many different jobs, until he obtained a title in Communications, and went to Los Angeles to study cinema, in the late 70s. He made some shortcuts, the majority of which received awards, and then two films which also won many prizes and established him as one of the most important Canadian directors of the time. He was preparing his third film when he died, with his girlfriend, Marie-Soleil Tougas, in a plane crash.- Director
- Animation Department
- Additional Crew
Caroline Leaf was born in 1946 in Seattle, Washington, USA. She is a director, known for The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (1977), Two Sisters (1991) and The Street (1976).- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Born in Montreal, Québec, Canada. Classical studies. He learned the abc of cinema in the cine-clubs circle of Montreal and wrote reviews in the periodical 'Objectif'. Engaged in 1962 at the Office national du film du Canada as an assistant-operator, He became a full cinematographer on three of Jean Pierre Lefebvre pictures. He makes his debut as a director in 1967 with a middle length movie Chantal en vrac.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Differently of his contemporary quebecois' directors, Lefebvre didn't make his class in the documentary. After his Literary studies and seven years of critics, he immediatly began directing fiction movies; a short in 1964 _L'Homoman_ preceeding an ininterrompt serie of movies of which he produce at least the first five. In fact, he has found his own production company Cinak Ltee and his own distributing company Disci Inc. His style is based on low cost movies, on natural location and using few characters. He approach the cinema in the same 'maniere' then Luc Besson; a non-narrative non-psychological cinema, mostly without action where the characters present themselves by the way they live.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Robert Lepage is one of the foremost stage directors today and a leading figure in the Canadian avant garde, attracting particular attention for his multimedia-rich theatrical presentations as well as his innovative work with Shakespearian drama and opera.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Richard J. Lewis was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is known for Barney's Version (2010), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000) and Westworld (2016).- Director
- Editor
- Cinematographer
Arthur Lipsett was born on 13 May 1936 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was a director and editor, known for N-Zone (1970), A Trip Down Memory Lane (1965) and Free Fall (1964). He died on 1 May 1986 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.- Producer
- Director
- Animation Department
Colin Low was born on 24 July 1926 in Cardston, Alberta, Canada. He was a producer and director, known for Universe (1960), City of Gold (1957) and Age of the Beaver (1952). He was married to Eugenie. He died on 24 February 2016 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Guy Maddin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Herdis Maddin (a hair-dresser) and Charles "Chas" Maddin (grain clerk and general manager of the Maroons, a Winnipeg hockey team). Maddin studied economics at the University of Winnipeg, working as a bank manager, house painter, and photographic archivist before becoming a film-maker. Maddin produced his first film in 1985, and since then his distinctive style of recreating and renovating silent film conventions and international critical acclaim have made him one of Canada's most celebrated directors. In 2003, Maddin also expanded his career to become an author and an installation artist.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
A distant relative of Herman and Joseph Mankiewicz, Francis was born in Shangaï in 1944. In 1945, his family moved to Montreal, where Francis would spend all his childhood. In the sixties, he graduated in Geology from Montreal University and worked in the woods for a while before realizing geology might not be his true calling. In 1966 he enrolled at the 'London School of Film Technique'. Back in Montréal in 1968, he worked as assistant director on commercial films like 'L'Amour humain' and 'Love is a four-letter word'.
In 1972, he directed his first fiction movie 'Le Temps d'une chasse', a character study based on his own screenplay and partly inspired by his days as geologist. The film was well received by critics and was presented at the Venice Film Festival. But it was only in 1978 that Mankiewicz directed his second picture 'Une Amie d'enfance', a dramatic comedy from a theater play by Louis Saïa and Louise Roy.
1980 saw the release of his third film, 'Les Bons débarras', an original screenplay by maverick novelist Réjean Ducharme. As soon as it came out, the film was considered a milestone in Québécois cinema, a reputation that time hasn't tarnished. The film swept the Genie awards, taking eight trophees including best film and best director while actress Marie Tifo's interpretation of the main character won the Silver Hugo at Chicago Film Festival.
Once again written by Réjean Ducharme, Mankiewicz's next film, 'Les Beaux souvenirs' (1981), was eagerly awaited and shared obvious similarities with 'Les Bons débarras' in themes and approach. Unfortunately, while some critics expressed enthousiasm, the global reaction was lukewarm.
Between 1983 and 1985, Mankiewicz worked on an adaptation of Anne Hébert's novel 'Les Fous de Bassan', but left the project after heavy frictions with the producers. The film was eventually made with Yves Simoneau at the helm. Mankiewicz, for his part, was hired by CBC producer Bernard Zuckerman to direct 'And Then you die', an atmospheric thriller that won two Gemini TV awards. During those years he also directed Sam Shepard's play 'Comme une vue' in Montréal, his sole venture in the theater world.
Based on a novel by Jacques Savoie adaptated by Savoie and Mankiewicz, 'Les Portes tournantes' was premiered at Cannes Film festival in 1988 in section 'Un Certain Regard'. It was distinguished by the Oecumenical jury and drew favourable notices before winning two Genies.
Mankiewicz then teamed up again with Bernard Zuckerman on two mini-series : 'Love and hate' (1990) and 'Conspiracy of Silence' (1991). Written by Suzette Couture and focusing on real life criminal cases, they both performed very well at the Geminis, winning respectively 5 and 7 trophees, each time including best dramatic mini-series and best direction.
Those were to be Mankiewicz last films. In August 1993, he died unexpectedly of cancer at age 49. In his work, Mankiewicz often focused on family in crisis, relations between adults and children, echoes from the past. His premature death was a great loss for Canadian and Québécois cinema. Remain 'les beaux souvenirs' !- Director
- Editor
- Cinematographer
Bill Mason was born in 1929 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He was a director and editor, known for The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes (1968), Path of the Paddle: Solo Whitewater (1977) and Path of the Paddle: Doubles Whitewater (1977). He died on 29 October 1988 in Meech Lake, Canada.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Bruce McDonald was born on 28 May 1959 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for Pontypool (2008), Dance Me Outside (1994) and Highway 61 (1991).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Michael McGowan was born on 14 April 1966 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for Still Mine (2012), Saint Ralph (2004) and Score: A Hockey Musical (2010).- Producer
- Director
- Animation Department
Norman McLaren is one of the most awarded filmmakers in the history of Canadian cinema, and a pioneer in both animation and filmmaking. Born in Scotland, he entered the Glasgow School of Fine Arts in 1932 to study set design. His early experiments in animation included actually scratching and painting the film stock itself, as he did not have ready access to a camera. In the early 30s he worked as a cameraman in Scotland and England, and in 1936 went to Spain to film the Civil War. He emigrated to the US in 1939, aware that war was imminent, and in 1941, at the invitation of John Grierson, he moved to Canada to work for the National Film Board.
McLaren made several propaganda films for the NFB, but continued develop his experimental work in his spare time. He later founded the animation department at the NFB, where he was at his most prolific. His most famous work, Neighbours (1952), utilized a style of animation known as pixilation, where the camera films moving people and objects a few frames at a time, giving the action a frantic, unearthly look. The short film won McLaren an Oscar. He continued to use a variety of styles and techniques on his animated shorts, including the optical editor to film _Pas de Deux (1968)_, filming through a prism for _Line: Horizontal (1962)_ and also using live action featuring himself in Opening Speech (1960).
In addition to film, McLaren worked with UNESCO in the 50s and 60s on programs to teach film and animation techniques in China and India. His five part "Animated Motion" shorts, produced in the late 70s, are an excellent example of instruction on the basics of film animation.
McLaren died in 1987, leaving behind a lasting legacy to the film and animation world. The Canadian Film Board recognized this in 1989 by naming the CFB head office building the Norman McLaren Building.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Deepa Mehta is a transnational artist and a screenwriter, director, and producer whose work has been called "courageous", "provocative" and "breathtaking". Her visually lush and emotionally resonating films have played at every major international film festival; receiving numerous awards and accolades, and have been distributed around the world. Deepa was born in India and received a degree in philosophy from the University of New Delhi before immigrating to Canada. She began her career making documentaries in India.
In 1991, Deepa's first feature film Sam & Me, which stars Om Puri, won a Special Jury Mention in the Camera D'Or section at the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1992-1994 she directed two episodes of The Young Indiana Jones, produced by George Lucas for ABC. In 1993, Deepa directed her second feature film Camilla, a Canada-UK co-pro starring Jessica Tandy, Bridget Fonda, Elias Koteas, Maury Chaykin, Graham Greene, and Hume Cronyn. Fire, which Deepa wrote and directed, is the first film in her Elemental Trilogy (Fire, Earth, Water). Fire opened Perspective Canada at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was runner-up for the People's Choice Most Popular Film Award. It played at the New York Film Festival and won many awards worldwide, including the Audience Award for Best Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival and Silver Hugo Awards for Best Direction and Best Actress in Chicago.
Earth, based on Bapsi Sidhwa's acclaimed novel about Partition, Cracking India, is the second film in the Elemental Trilogy. It premiered as a Special Presentation at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival, and won the Prix Premiere du Public at the Festival du Film Asiatique de Deauville and the Critics' Award at the Verona Schermi d'Amore International Film Festival. Bollywood/Hollywood was a change of pace. Written and directed by Deepa, it is a lighthearted, affectionate comedy about two mismatched lovers. It opened Perspective Canada at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival and was a tremendous crossover box office success. It remains one of the top 10 grossing English language Canadian movies. In 2003 Deepa co-wrote and directed the Canada-UK co-pro The Republic of Love, based on a Carol Shields novel.
After a disrupted and hazardous production history Deepa's final film in the Elemental Trilogy Water opened the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, and was the first Canadian film acquired by US distributor Fox Searchlight. Water is a powerful, hauntingly tragic story, set in Benares (Varanasi) about a child widow who at the age of eight is forced to enter a house of widows where she has to live for the rest of her life. The movie was to have been shot in India in 2000, but Hindu fundamentalists fomented riots, burnt sets, and issued death threats against the director and actors, forcing production to shut down and the filmmakers to leave the country. Water was successfully remounted in Sri Lanka and completed shooting in June 2004, and features many of India's most renowned actors.
Water was an enormous success. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Annual Academy Awards, and has screened at festivals around the world, winning many awards, and remains an audience favourite. The Vancouver Film Critics Circle named Deepa Mehta the Best Canadian Director of 2006. This fall (2015) is the 10th anniversary of Water's launch.
In 2006 Deepa made a documentary about domestic violence in Toronto's immigrant families called Let's Talk About It, which continues to be used in community outreach programs. She then thematically segued into the feature film Heaven On Earth, which explores arranged marriages and isolation. Starring Preity Zinta, the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008. It was awarded a Silver Hugo for Best Actress at the Chicago International Film Festival, and received the Best Screenplay Award at the Dubai International Film Festival. It also won the Youth Jury Award at the Schermi d'Amore Film Festival in Verona and the Audience Award at the River to River Florence Indian Film Festival.
In 2012, Deepa completed her epic cinematic adaptation of Salman Rushdie's famous novel about the history of India in the 20th century, Midnight's Children. A novel that won three Booker prizes. The movie, with 127 speaking parts, and covering five distinct time periods from 1917-1977, was a vast, ambitious undertaking and has screened all over the world, including the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival. Midnight's Children was chosen as the Best Feature Film of 2013 at the Directors Guild of Canada's Awards.
Deepa's work as an artist, as a progressive voice about social issues, and her generous mentorship have often been recognized. She has received numerous honorary degrees and many awards and honours, among them: The Life of Distinction Award from the Canadian Centre of Diversity, The Excellence in the Arts Award from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the Woman of Distinction, President's Award from the YMCA. She is a recipient of the Governor General's Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Film. Most recently, in 2013, Deepa was appointed as an officer to the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, for her work as a "groundbreaking screenwriter, director, and producer." She is also a recipient of the province of Ontario's highest honour, the Order of Ontario.- Cinematographer
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Peter Mettler was born on September 7, 1958 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a cinematographer and director who is known as an influential member of the 1980s Toronto New Wave. He is best known for his innovative documentaries Picture of Light (1994), Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002), and The End Of Time (2012), which call into question the nature of image-making and mediated language to represent experience. His films are characterized by an improvisational approach that eschews traditional script treatment in favor of intuitive methods that combine travelogue, interview, and voice-over, and share common themes of transcendence, alternate states of perceptual awareness, and examinations of the relations between nature and technology.
Mettler's first feature, Scissere (1982), is an experimental psychodrama that bears the influence of the films of Stan Brakhage and Andrei Tarkovsky, traits also shared in Eastern Avenue (1985). Following these early experiments, Mettler produced two dramatic features, The Top of His Head (1989), and Tectonic Plates (1992), before making Picture of Light (1994), which would lead him towards his mature style of documentary practice. Picture of Light was made from an encounter with the Swiss artist-scientist-collector Andreas Züst, who charged Mettler with the quixotic task of capturing the aurora borealis on film, leading the pair to brave arctic temperatures and construct a special time-lapse camera system capable of operating in extreme conditions. Playful and philosophical, the film was praised by John Powers of Vogue as "an extraordinary piece of filmmaking. In an era when only one movie in a hundred has a single moment of visionary power, Picture of Light is bursting with them."
Mettler's most extensive work, however, is Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002), an epic, three-hour exploration of transcendence that moves across three continents and a wide range of subjects and locales, from ecstatic Christian worshippers at a convention near the Toronto airport, to a Las Vegas businessman who has invented an erotic chair, to people who retell stories of past lives and passed loved ones, to the pastoral Swiss countryside and recovering drug addicts living in Zurich, and finally the landscape and people of Southern India. Many of the themes of Gambling, Gods and LSD are followed-up in The End of Time (2012), which takes viewers to various exotic locations, including a particle collider in Switzerland, lava fields in Hawaii, and an interstellar observatory, in a mediation on the meaning of temporal experience.
Mettler is also known as a key collaborator with many other Canadian filmmakers, including Atom Egoyan (Next of Kin, Family Viewing, Krapp's Last Tape), Bruce McDonald (Knock Knock), Patricia Rozema (Passion: A Letter in 16mm), Jeremy Podeswa, Nick de Pencier (Streetcar), and Jennifer Baichwal (Manufactured Landscapes). More recently, Mettler collaborated with Swiss filmmakers Stéphanie Barbey and Luc Peter as cinematographer and co-editor on Broken Land (2014), and with Emma Davie as co-director on Becoming Animal (2018). Following the completion of Gambling, Gods and LSD, Mettler became interested in developing an improvisational approach to cinematic montage within a live context, and has worked with the software company Derivative Inc. to develop a digital image-mixing software platform used in numerous performances in collaboration with a diverse array of artists in a wide range of locales. Some of Mettler's additional collaborators include Jane Siberry, Michael Ondaatje, Jim O'Rourke, Fred Frith, Werner Penzel, Albert Hoffman, Peter Weber, Greg Hermanovic, Andrea Nann, Peter Liechti, Gabriel Scotti, Vincent Hanni, Costanza Francavilla, Ritchie Hawtin, and Neil Young.
Mettler's films have been the focus of multiple retrospectives, including at Toronto International Film Festival, BAFICI, Lincoln Centre, Pacific Film Archive, Jeu de Paume Paris, Cinémathèque Suisse, Hot Docs, Festival dei Popoli, Kinoatelje Film Festival, and many other festivals and cinematheques. His awards include a 2003 Genie from the Academy of Canadian Cinema for Best Documentary, the La Sarraz Prize from Locarno, Grand Prix and Prix du Jeune Publique at Vision Du Réel, Grand Prize at Figueira da Foz Festival, and Best Film, Cinematography, and Writing at Hot Docs. His works have been the subject of two books: Making The Invisible Visible (1995), and Of This Place and Elsewhere: The Films and Photography of Peter Mettler (2006). In 2017, Picture Of Light was selected by TIFF as one of Canada's Essential 150 Films.- Director
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Robert Morin was born on 20 May 1949 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is a director and writer, known for The 4 Soldiers (2013), 3 histoires d'Indiens (2014) and Requiem for a Handsome Bastard (1992).- Director
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Unconventional filmmaker who moved from independent cinema into the Hollywood mainstream. Moyle became a sought-after writer-director after the surprising success of Pump Up the Volume (1990), a sleeper hit about teen angst starring Christian Slater. His previous directorial outing occurred a full decade earlier: the critically lambasted Times Square (1980), a flop which concerned the surprisingly tame adventures of two runaway teenage girls in the Big Apple. This film--Moyle's first studio directing assignment--was such an unpleasant experience for the neophyte filmmaker that he succumbed to a stress-related disorder that caused all his hair to fall out.
Moyle began his career as an actor and screenwriter working in close collaboration with Frank Vitale, a Canada-based independent filmmaker. Their film Montreal Main (1974) was a loosely structured quasi-documentary about gay life in Montreal. Moyle made his directorial debut with The Rubber Gun (1977), an exploration of the city's drug culture. In addition to acting in his own films, Moyle appeared in David Cronenberg's Rabid (1977) and had a major supporting role in Richard Benner's cult favorite, Outrageous! (1977). After the failure of TIMES SQUARE he left the industry for a ten-year period during which he wrote a novel and several screenplays, before PUMP UP THE VOLUME restored his commercial credibility.- Art Department
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Vincenzo Natali was born on 6 January 1969 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Cube (1997), In the Tall Grass (2019) and Cypher (2002).- Director
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Don Owen was born on 19 September 1931 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a director and writer, known for High Steel (1965), Unfinished Business (1984) and The Ernie Game (1967). He died on 21 February 2016 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Director
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Peter Pearson was born on 13 March 1938 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar (1969), One Man (1977) and The Dowry (1969).- Director
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Born in Montreal, Québec, Pierre Perrault went to law school before turning is attention to the cinema. Concerned more by real life then fiction, he makes movies in the 'cinéma direct' style. He filmed real people in real life situations listening to what they have to say and looking at how they do things. He is also a poet and a writer.- Writer
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Born in Quebec City on July 3, 1929, Clément Perron obtained his bachelor's degree at Laval University. He then went to France to study literature (in Poitiers), then at the Sorbonne in Paris in preparation for a career as a teacher. Out of a desire to learn, he also enrolled in the Film Institute and he became a frequent visitor to the French cinematheque, where he really discovered cinema and its great creators. Upon his return to Canada in 1957, he joined the National Film Board as a screenwriter ("Correlieu", "L'Emigré", "L'Amiante"...). Dissatisfied, wishing to push further the experience of creating a film, he began directing in 1960. his first film with a documentary about Governor General Georges-P. Vanier. His first truly personal film was a 1962 documentary set in a small town where a paper mill determines the daily life of its population. With its striking editing and oppressive soundtrack by Maurice Blackburn, "Day After Day" was a strong denunciation of alienation at work in a way that is perhaps even more alarming than Fritz Lang's "Metropolis". He continued to shoot until the early 1980s, sometimes co-directing with Georges Dufaux, alternating interesting shorts with original features, including the eccentric "C'est pas la faute à Jacques Cartier" (1967). In the early 1970s, he wrote the screenplay for the film "Mon oncle Antoine", directed by Claude Jutra, one of the major works of Quebec and Canadian cinema. It earned Perron two awards, one at the 1971 Canadian Film Awards and the other at the 7th Chicago International Film Festival. Perron followed up with the social drama "Taureau" (1973), the first feature film for which he was both writer and director. The subject, intolerance in a rural community, was controversial and the film got mixed reviews. His next opus, "Partis pour la gloire", about conscription, was much better received. Apart from writing and directing, Clement Perron was also a demanding producer, for fellow filmmakers like Jean-Pierre Lefebvre ("Mon amie Pierrette") or Jacques Godbout ("Kid sentiment"). Perron finally retired from the NFB in 1986 to work in the private sector primarily as a writer. He died in 1999 in Pointe-Claire, Quebec.- Director
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Jeremy Podeswa is an award winning feature film and television director who has been nominated four times for the Best Director Emmy, for HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" and "Game of Thrones" (twice), and for the Tom Hanks/ Steven Spielberg produced "The Pacific". He has also been nominated four times for the Directors Guild of America Award.
He has also recently directed episodes of "3 Body Problem" (Netflix), from the creators of GoT, and "The New Look" (Apple) starring Juliette Binoche. And he was Executive Producer and Director on the HBOMax limited series "Station Eleven" earning a Directors Guild of America nomination. The show was nominated for 7 Emmy Awards.
He has directed for many of the most ground breaking cable television series and mini-series, including for HULU "The Handmaid's Tale"; for HBO, "Game of Thrones", "True Detective", "The Newsroom", "Here and Now", "Boardwalk Empire", "True Blood", "Rome", "Six Feet Under", "Carnivale" and "The Pacific"; for Apple "The Mosquito Coast" and "The New Look"; for Showtime, "The Loudest Voice", "On Becoming a God in Central Florida", "Homeland", "Ray Donovan", "The Borgias", "The Tudors", "Dexter", "Weeds", "Queer as Folk", "The L Word"; for AMC "The Walking Dead"; for F/X "American Horror Story: Asylum and Coven"; and for TNT the mini-series "Into the West" (produced by Steven Spielberg and nominated for 16 Emmy Awards).
Other credits include the television movie "After the Harvest", starring Sam Shepard, winner of the Directors Guild of Canada Award for Best Direction.
He has also written and directed three award winning feature films: Fugitive Pieces (Samuel Goldwyn Films, Opening Night, Toronto International Film Festival) starring Stephen Dillane and Rosamund Pike; The Five Senses (Fine Line Distribution, Directors' Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival) starring Mary Louise Parker; and Eclipse (Berlin and Sundance Festivals).- Actress
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Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her sensitive portraits of wounded and conflicted young women in independent films.
She was born into a show business family: her stepfather, Michael Polley, appeared with her in the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and on the television series Avonlea (1990); and her mother, Diane Polley, was an actress and casting director. It was her mother's connections that launched Sarah, at her own insistence, on an acting career at the age of four, following in the footsteps of her older half-brother Mark Polley. A second half-brother, John Buchan, is a casting director and producer.
Her career as a child actress shifted into high gear when she was cast as the Cockney waif Jody Turner in Lantern Hill (1989), for which she won a Gemini Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy, in 1992. Produced by Kevin Sullivan, the film was based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables (1985). When Sullivan created a television series based on Montgomery's work, he cast Polley in the lead role of Sara Stanley in Avonlea (1990). The series propelled Polley into the first rank of Canadian TV stars and made her independently wealthy by the age of fourteen.
Her personal life was deeply affected by the death of her mother Diane from cancer shortly after her 11th birthday, a development that ironically paralleled the fictional life of her character Sara. Highly intelligent and politically progressive at a young age, Polley eventually rebelled against what she felt was the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the US, eventually dropping out of the show. Though she does not blame her parents, she remains publicly disenchanted over the loss of her childhood and, in October 2003, said she is working on a script about a twelve-year-old girl on a TV show.
Polley, who picked up a second Gemini Award for her performance in the TV series Straight Up (1996), subsequently quit acting and high school to turn her attention to politics, positioning herself on the extreme left of Canada's left-of-center New Democratic Party. The publicity ensuing from her losing some teeth after being slugged by an Ontario policeman during a protest against the Conservative provincial government, plus the stinging cynicism from some other activists unimpressed by her celebrity, led her to lower her political profile temporarily and return to acting in Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter (1997). It was her appearance as Nicole, the teenage girl injured in a school bus accident who serves as the conscience of the small town rent by the tragedy, that first brought her to the attention of critics in the US. In Canada, the role was heralded by critics as her successful breakthrough to adult roles. It was her second film with Egoyan, who wrote the part with her in mind when he adapted the novel by Russell Banks, who, ironically, is American. Predictions of an Academy Award nomination and future stardom were part of the critical consensus, and she received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada's Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics. It was the buzz created at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere (1999) was showcased, when the entertainment media crowned her the it-girl of 1999.
Intensely private and extremely ambivalent about the personal cost of celebrity and the Hollywood ethos Fame is the Name of the Game, Polley could be seen as rebelling against the expectations of mainstream cinema when she embarked on a career path that took her out of the spotlight thrown by the harsh lights of the Hollywood hype/publicity machine after shooting the film Go (1999). She dropped out of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), the US$60 million mega-hyped vehicle that was supposed to make her a mainstream star in the US, choosing to return to Canada to make the CDN$1.5 million The Law of Enclosures (2000) for Genie Award-winner John Greyson, a director she admires greatly. The film grossed poorly in Canada and was not released in the US, but it did garner Polley her second Genie nomination for Best Actress. While her replacement in Almost Famous (2000) went on to win an Oscar nomination and a career above the title in glossy Hollywood films, she took a wide variety of parts, large and small, in independent films, including significant roles in the ensemble pieces The Claim (2000) and The Weight of Water (2000); bit parts in eXistenZ (1999) and Love Come Down (2000); and the lead in No Such Thing (2001). Her choice of projects showed her to be a questing spirit more focused on learning the art of her craft than on stardom.
She has said that her choice of film roles, eschewing mainstream Hollywood movies for chancier, non-commercial independent fare, was the result of an ethical decision on her part to make films with social importance. A less-observant viewer might think that the rebel Polley played in her political life that had previously manifested itself in her profession was now driving her to the verge of career suicide in terms of popularity, marketability, and choice of future roles. However, that interpretation does not recognize the extraordinary talent that will always keep her in demand by directors, if not casting agents, with an eye on the opening weekend box office. One must understand Polley's career progression in light of her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre's directors program and her production of short films, including Don't Think Twice (1999) and the highly praised I Shout Love (2001). Polley is a cinema artist. This woman wants to make, and will make films. Thus, we can understand her career choices as a desire to work with and understand the technique of some of the best directors in film, including David Cronenberg, Michael Winterbottom, and Hal Hartley.
Polley is as renowned for her intelligence as for her remarkable talent. The problem of the intelligent person in the acting field is that the actor, as artist, in not ultimately in control of their medium, and it is artistic control that is the hallmark of the great artist. The controlling intelligence on a movie set is the director, and her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre has given her a new perspective on acting. The actor, she says, should not try to give a complete performance for the camera (that is, control the representation on film) but must remember that the function of the actor is to give the director as much coverage as possible as a film, as well as a performance, is made in the editing room. According to Polley, this realization, that the film actor exists to serve the director, has given her new enthusiasm for acting. Thus, her career, and her career choices, can be seen as a quest for knowledge about the art of cinema, a journey whose fruition we will see in her future feature work as both actor and director.- Producer
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Born in Montreal. Study first in Law but turn to the Conservatoire d'art dramatique. She works on TV at the Societe Radio-Canada as an actress, an interviewer, a writer. Enters the Office du film du Canada in 1960 in the Translation's Office. From edition to production then direction, she becomes a director engaged on women issues. She made her first long features De mere en fille in 1967. But it is really in 1979 with A Scream from Silence (1979) that she really punches her way through a large public, presenting the rape problem from the victim point-de-vue.- Director
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Léa Pool was born on 8 September 1950 in Genève, Switzerland. She is a director and writer, known for Set Me Free (1999), The Passion of Augustine (2015) and La femme de l'hôtel (1984).- Director
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David Rimmer was born in 1942 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was a director and editor, known for Local Knowledge (1992), Jack Wise: Language of the Brush (1998) and Shades of Red (1982). He died on 27 January 2023 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.- Director
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Patricia Rozema was born on 20 August 1958 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She is a director and writer, known for Into the Forest (2015), Mansfield Park (1999) and Grey Gardens (2009).- Director
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Donald Shebib was born on 27 January 1938 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a director and editor, known for Goin' Down the Road (1970), Nightalk (2022) and Down the Road Again (2011). He was married to Tedde Moore. He died on 5 November 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Director
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Yves Simoneau was born on 28 October 1955 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for Dans le ventre du dragon (1989), Napoléon (2002) and The 4400 (2004).- Director
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John N. Smith was born on 31 July 1943 in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for Sitting in Limbo (1986), Revolution's Orphans (1979) and The Boys of St. Vincent (1992).- Director
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Central figure of the American avant-garde. An artist who made an isolated animated short, A to Z (1956), Snow concentrated on his painting career until moving to New York in 1963. After attending avant-garde film screenings organized by critic-filmmaker Jonas Mekas and turning out a second film, the formalist New York Eye and Ear Control (1972), he made the highly influential Wavelength (1967). WAVELENGTH consists of a 45-minute zoom across a loft--interruped at several points by a cryptic narrative involving a murder--which ends on a close-up of a photograph of ocean waves. The film quickly earned a reputation in international avant-garde circles and inspired a generation of structuralist filmmakers. It was the first in a series of Snow's works which reduce the film medium to one of its most basic elements--camera movement: Standard Time (1967) is made up of 360-degree pans; in _Back and Forth (1969)_, the camera moves backwards and forwards at varying speeds, recording events in a classroom; in The Central Region (1971), Snow's remote-controlled camera, mounted on a tripod in the middle of the Quebec tundra, executes 360 degree rotations in three different circular patterns (at various speeds) while zooming in and out.- Producer
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Robin Spry was born on 25 October 1939 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a producer and writer, known for Hitting Home (1988), One Man (1977) and Keeping Track (1986). He died on 28 March 2005 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Director
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Ralph L. Thomas was born on 8 September 1939 in São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. He is a director and writer, known for Ticket to Heaven (1981), Tyler (1978) and Drying Up the Streets (1978).- Director
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Jean-Marc Vallée was a Canadian filmmaker, editor and screenwriter from Montreal. He directed Black List, C.R.A.Z.Y., The Young Victoria, Wild, Dallas Buyers Club, Los Locos, Loser Love and Café de Flore. He also created the HBO shows Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects. He was married to Chantal Cadieux and had two sons. He passed away on Christmas Day 2021.- Director
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Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), and Incendies (2010). He is married to Tanya Lapointe.- Producer
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Clement Virgo is one of Canada's foremost film directors. In 2015 he directed and co-wrote a six part miniseries adaptation of the Lawrence Hill novel The Book of Negroes (2015) which debuted to record-breaking numbers on the CBC in Canada and on BET in the U.S. and won twelve Canadian Screen Awards and was nominated for two U.S. Critics Choice Television Awards for Best Limited Series and Best Actress in a Limited Series (Aunjanue Ellis). Additional accolades include the 2015 Cablefax Award and C21 International Drama Award for Best Miniseries and four 2015 NAACP Image Award Nominations including Best Miniseries, Best Actor (Cuba Gooding Jr.), Best Actress (Ellis), and Best Writing (Virgo, Hill).
His TV directing credits include American Crime (2015), The Wire (2002), and the entire first season of the OWN network drama series Greenleaf (2016), on which he is also serving as Executive Producer with _Oprah Winfrey_. Virgo's feature films include the 2007 boxing drama Poor Boy's Game (2007), (Berlin, TIFF, AFF Audience Award), Lie with Me (2005 - Berlin, TIFF, Pusan), and Love Come Down (2000 -Berlin, Toronto). Virgo's first feature Rude (1995) premiered at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard and went on to screen at numerous festivals around the world including Toronto, London and Sundance. Since 2010, Virgo has also presented a series of intimate annual talks to celebrate Black History Month in Toronto with such notable guests as Lee Daniels, _Norman Jewison_, _Spike Lee_, _Pam Grier_, John Singleton, and _Chris Tucker (I)_.- Director
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Born in Alberta, to a doctor father and musician mother, Anne earned degrees in mathematics and music, putting her way through university as a performer. She came to film-making after working and traveling around the world for a couple of years, exploring Europe, Asia and Africa. She returned home to join a collective focused on making political documentaries. Here she had the opportunity to shoot, edit, produce, write, direct and instigate dozens of short movies before flying solo and being a free-lance artist. In 1979 she married Garth Hendren and a year later gave birth to a identical twin boys, Quincy and Morgan - who today both work in film. By the nineties she had moved to Salt Spring island on the west coast of Canada and was known for making Canadian classics that won numerous national and international awards. Known as a master story-teller, her work to date has garnered seven honorary doctorates and an Order of Canada. She lives now in White Rock B.C. with her husband, Luben Izov, and continues to write and direct and mentoring film-makers in the art of story-telling.- Director
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Sandy Wilson was born in 1947 in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. She is a director and writer, known for My American Cousin (1985), Harmony Cats (1992) and American Boyfriends (1989).