Giles Walker (January 17, 1946 - March 23, 2020) [1] was a Scottish-born Canadian film director.
Giles Walker, born in 1946 in Dundee, Scotland, received a B.A. from the University of New Brunswick and an M.A. from Stanford University Film School in 1972. He joined the National Film Board of Canada soon after, directing documentaries, then switching to dramas in 1977. Bravery in the Field was nominated for a live-action short Oscar in 1979. The Masculine Mystique (directed with John N. Smith), the first of a trio of NFB movies dealing with issues of gender relations, showed Walker's experimental side, working with non-professional actors and the technique of improvisation. [2] The two other films in the series, however, moved closer to an easy, palatable Hollywood style – successfully in 90 Days but less so in The Last Straw. Perhaps Walker's most successful fictional work is Princes in Exile, a film about a summer camp for children with cancer, notable for delicate treatment of the subject and a moving lack of sentimentality. Walker died in March 2020.
May 25 is the 145th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 220 days remain until the end of the year.
Roman Kroitor was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as a pioneer of Cinéma vérité, as the co-founder of IMAX, and as the creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic 3D animation system. He was also the original inspiration for The Force. His prodigious output garnered numerous awards, including two BAFTA Awards, three Cannes Film Festival awards, and two Oscar nominations.
Charles Martin Smith is an American actor, writer, and director of film and television based in British Columbia, Canada. He is known for his roles in American Graffiti (1973), The Buddy Holly Story (1978), Never Cry Wolf (1983), Starman (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Deep Cover (1992), And the Band Played On (1993), Speechless (1994) and Deep Impact (1998).
William Weintraub was a Canadian documentarian/filmmaker, journalist and author, best known for his long career with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name יוֹחָנָן and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename Iain. It is a popular name in Scotland, where it originated, as well as other English-speaking countries.
Francis George "Franc" Roddam is an English film director, businessman, screenwriter, television producer and publisher, best known as the creator of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and the director of Quadrophenia (1979). He is a graduate of the London Film School.
Colin Archibald Low was a Canadian animation and documentary filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was known as a pioneer, one of Canada's most important filmmakers, and was regularly referred to as "the gentleman genius". His numerous honors include five BAFTA awards, eight Cannes Film Festival awards, and six Academy Award nominations.
Derek is a masculine given name. It is the English language short form of Diederik, the Low Franconian form of the name Theodoric. Theodoric is an old Germanic name with an original meaning of "people-ruler".
Docufiction is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression.
Gerald Potterton was a Canadian director, animator, producer and writer. He is best known for directing the cult classic Heavy Metal and for his animation work on Yellow Submarine.
John N. Smith OC is a Canadian film director and screenwriter.
90 Days is a 1985 Canadian comedy film directed by Giles Walker and written by Walker and David Wilson. The film stars Sam Grana and Stefan Wodoslawsky as Alex and Blue, two unlucky-in-love guys who are trying to find new girlfriends. The film also stars Fernanda Tavares as Laura, a woman with a business proposition for Alex to become a sperm donor, and Christine Pak as Hyang-Sook, a Korean woman whom Blue is considering from a mail-order bride service.
Robert Verrall is a Canadian animator, director and film producer who worked for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) from 1945 to 1987. Over the course of his career, his films garnered a BAFTA Award, prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, and six Academy Award nominations.
Stanley Jackson (1914-1981) was a Canadian film director, producer, writer and narrator with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
The Last Straw is a Canadian comedy film, released in 1987. Directed by Giles Walker and written by Walker and David Wilson, the film is a sequel to the films The Masculine Mystique and 90 Days.
Saverio "Sam" Grana is a Canadian Academy Award-nominated television and film producer and screenwriter, most noted for the film Train of Dreams and the television miniseries The Boys of St. Vincent.
Princes in Exile is a 1990 Canadian feature-length coming of age drama about a group of young people at a summer camp for kids with cancer, directed by Giles Walker, written by Joe Wiesenfeld, based on a novel of the same name by Mark Schreiber. The film follows a 17-year-old protagonist, Ryan, played by Zachary Ansley, and the friends he makes over the summer. The film title is derived from the joking term the film characters adopt to describe themselves. Other characters in the film include Robert, the camp's daredevil, who suffers from Lymphoid leukemia, as well as Holly, a girl who has lost part of her leg, who becomes emotionally involved with Ryan. Chuck Shamata plays the camp director. The 103-minute film was produced by John Dunning and was a co-production of Cinepix, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and National Film Board of Canada. It was released theatrically in the United States by Fries Entertainment.
The Masculine Mystique is a Canadian docufiction film directed by Giles Walker and John N. Smith and released in 1984.
Stefan Wodoslawsky is a Canadian film producer and actor. Associated in his early career with the National Film Board of Canada, he is most noted as coproducer with Roman Kroitor of the 1979 film Bravery in the Field, which was an Academy Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Film at the 52nd Academy Awards and won the Genie Award for Best TV Drama Under 30 Minutes at the 1st Genie Awards.