Laurie Townshend

Last updated
Laurie Townshend
Documentary filmmaker Laurie Townshend modelling jacket hand-painted by Hieram.jpg
Documentary filmmaker Laurie Townshend modelling jacket hand-painted by Hieram
OccupationFilm director
Years active2010s–present
Notable work A Mother Apart

Laurie Townshend is a Canadian filmmaker, whose feature documentary debut A Mother Apart was released in 2024. [1]

Townshend began her career as a middle school drama teacher at Sir Ernest MacMillan Senior Public School in Toronto, Ontario, [2] where her students included Shamier Anderson and Stephan James. In 2013, she released the short drama film The Railpath Hero, and subsequently directed an episode of the 2016 documentary web series The Akua Benjamin Legacy Project.

A Mother Apart premiered at the 2024 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. [1] It subsequently screened at the 2024 Inside Out Film and Video Festival, where it won the juried awards for Best Canadian Film and Best First Feature Film, and the audience award for Best Documentary Film. [3] It subsequently won the DGC Allan King Award for Best Documentary Film at the 2025 Directors Guild of Canada awards. [4]

References

  1. 1 2 Andrew Parker, "Hot Docs 2024 Review | A Mother Apart". TheGATE.ca , April 26,. 2024.
  2. ↑ Andrew Campbell, "Gay-straight clubs good for all kids: For both homosexual and heterosexual students, suicidal thoughts, attempts lower in schools with GSAs". Toronto Star , February 17, 2014.
  3. ↑ Valerie Complex, "‘A Mother Apart’ Wins Top Prize At Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival Awards". Deadline Hollywood , June 3, 2024.
  4. ↑ Jamie Casemore, "North of North claims five honours at 2025 DGC Awards". Playback , November 10, 2025.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.