Nik Sexton is a Canadian film and television director from Newfoundland and Labrador, [1] whose debut feature film How to Be Deadly was released in 2014. [2]
The son of producer Mary Sexton and the nephew of Tommy Sexton, [1] he began his career making short comedy videos for YouTube about "Donnie Dumphy", a skateboarder who would become the central character in How to Be Deadly. [3] In 2012 he released a short film version of How to Be Deadly, before entering production on the feature version in 2013. [4] The film won the Canadian Comedy Award for Best Feature Film at the 16th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2015, [5] and Sexton was also nominated for Best Direction in a Feature Film.
He subsequently worked principally in television, with direction and production credits on Rick Mercer Report , This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Good People . With Mark Sakamoto and Tom Stanley, he was a Canadian Screen Award nominee for Best Writing in a Factual Program or Series at the 9th Canadian Screen Awards in 2021 for Good People. [6]
In 2021 Sexton and his mother collaborated on Me, Mom & Covid, a documentary film about Mary's mother and Nik's grandmother Sara Sexton, which centred on Sara's death of COVID-19 after having devoted her life to the care of her mentally disabled daughter Edwina and to HIV/AIDS activism following Tommy's death in 1993. [1]
His second feature film, Skeet , premiered at the 2024 Atlantic International Film Festival. [7]