Atom Egoyan

Director

July 19, 1960 (65 years)

Cairo, United Arab Republic [now Egypt]

Biography

Atom Egoyan CC (/ɛˈɡɔɪən/; Armenian: Ատոմ Եղոյեան, romanized: Atom Yeghoyan; born July 19, 1960) is an Armenian-Canadian filmmaker. One of the most preeminent directors of the Toronto New Wave, he emerged during the 1980s and made his career breakthrough with Exotica (1994), a hyperlink film set in a strip club. He followed this with his most critically acclaimed film, The Sweet Hereafter (1997), an adaptation of the Russell Banks novel of the same name, for which he received Academy Award nomin…

Filmography

7.2

The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents

The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1985 to 1986, and on the USA Network from 1987 to 1989. The series is an updated re-imagining of the classic 1955 series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

7.3

Friday the 13th: The Series

Micki and Ryan with the help of their friend Jack try to recover cursed antiques so they can store them in safety inside the antique store's vault.

6.6

Exotica

In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.

6.1

Chloe

Catherine and David Stewart are a well-to-do couple living in a posh area of Toronto, but all is not well in paradise. Catherine suspects that David is cheating on her, so she hires an escort named Chloe to meet David and see if he gives in to temptation — but events spin out of control when Chloe spills the details of her torrid encounters.

5.8

The Captive

Eight years after their daughter Cassandra's abduction tore them apart, an estranged couple discover disturbing clues that indicate that she is still alive.

6.2

Devil's Knot

The savage murders of three young children sparks a controversial trial of three teenagers accused of killing the kids as part of a satanic ritual.

7.4

Remember

With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.

6.1

Where the Truth Lies

An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.

5.6

Seven Veils

Jeanine, an earnest theatre director, has been given the task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, she allows her repressed trauma to color the present as she re-enters the opera world after so many years away.

6.1

Ararat

Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.

6.5

To Each His Own Cinema

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

5.1

Venice 70: Future Reloaded

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

6.9

The Sweet Hereafter

A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.

6.0

The Adjuster

An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.

5.9

Adoration

For his French-class assignment, a high school student weaves his family history in a news story involving terrorism, and goes on to invite an Internet audience in on the resulting controversy.

5.9

Speaking Parts

Hotel employee Lisa develops an obsession with her co-worker Lance, a struggling actor who has appeared in several films as an extra.

4.6

Gross Misconduct: The Life of Brian Spencer

A look into the life of troubled former hockey player Brian Spencer, who got into problems both on the ice and off. The film also has a close focus on Spencer's father, and shows how he influenced Brian's violent life both before and after his death.

6.3

Calendar

A photographer and his wife travel across Armenia photographing churches for a calendar project. Travelling with them is a local man acting as their driver and guide. As the project nears completion, the distance between husband and wife grows.

5.4

Guest of Honour

Veronica wants to remain in jail for a sexual assault she knows she's been wrongfully indicted for. She and her father, Jim, find themselves acting out of the bounds of good behavior as the past haunts them.

N/A

Preludes

Commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival to mark the event's 25th anniversary in September 2000, the "Preludes" program consisted of ten short films by Canadian directors which were inspired in some way by the festival. Each film screened as a prelude to a feature film in the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival program. The full "Preludes" anthology was screened on the web in November 2000, and was given theatrical retrospectives at the TIFF Lightbox in the subsequent years.