Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan, CCis a Canadian director, writer, producer and former actor. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica, a film set primarily in and around the fictional Exotica strip club. Egoyan's most critically acclaimed film is the drama The Sweet Hereafter, and his biggest commercial success is the erotic thriller Chloe. Egoyan has been nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, both for The Sweet Hereafter. He also won several awards at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth19 July 1960
CityCairo, Egypt
CountryCanada
I find it deeply upsetting when I see justice not being served. How do we as human beings deal with the unknown? The West Memphis Three trial is a joke on so many different levels.
I think the situation in Toronto is such that there are funding organizations which make it easy for a film to raise more money than it needs and very often that works against a film.
It is about this very abstract sense of displacement that he feels the moment he turns off the television.
Try to produce your own films, avoid directing for hire.
Every actor has a different temperament. Part of my job is to know what those boundaries are. The actor has to know you'll be there at the other end, that you're trying to represent them in the best light, who they are as they're harnessing these roles. The methods vary from actor to actor.
The fathers greatest folly is that he believes he can be a much more simple person than he is; he is not really able to deal with his own complexity as a human being.
When you're working with a smaller budget I suppose one of the things that has to be in your mind when you are writing is that you have to keep the characters down to a minimum.
Working on the themes I was interested in, through the context of a particular family, was a very economical way of dealing with a lot of the issues I was concerned with.
I just think I love the process of making films. It's not tortuous for me at all. I love being with my crew. I love actors. There's a joy to the process.
I think ultimately if you have a very high expectation of your audience and you know exactly what it is you're trying to express through the medium of film, there will always be an audience for you.
I make my living doing freelance directing for North American television shot in Toronto, series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, and so forth.
The biggest problem with the independent film sector in Toronto is that they find themselves having to make that budget show on screen.
I believe my signal of maturity as a filmmaker iswhen I'll actually acknowledge the fact that the first take is usuallythe best.
There is a certain moment in the film when the son is in the nursing home and he goes to the television and turns it off because he sees himself in the image.