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
That's a very odd notion because it involves seeing money up there on the screen - if something cost $5 million to make, they want to see that $5 million up there.
As a producer, I think one of the most important decisions you make is not necessarily the material you are working on but the production apparatus that you choose to develop the project with, and that determines what funding you go to, it determines many factors.
April 24th was another commemoration of the genocide of Armenia people by Turkey. The perpetrator never admitted the crime. I was raised with that, this question: how do you actually find the truth of such a traumatic event? I'm obsessed with that issue.
One of the huge advantages of shooting in the winter is that locations that wouldn't have been available to us suddenly were, like Yorkville. ... It's just specific streets and specific angles. I think that's what's always kind of shocking about some cities: they are really about intersections.
I mean, if you are directing actors to do one thing and then directing them to do something else entirely because the one thing you wanted them to do may not work, then you are just shattering their confidence in the project.
My parents taught me to believe that through the creative act, we're able to transcend and give a response to desecration.
I started in theater and I wanted to write plays, but I never really found an original voice as a playwright.
Don’t get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend.
Though I am still very vulnerable to audiences - and it happens all the time - where for some reason the energy doesn't connect and, since the film is very personal, obviously I am made to feel very vulnerable by that.
You can talk about Holocaust denial, but it's really marginal for the most part. What is compelling about the Armenian genocide, is how it has been forgotten.
My exposure to mainstream forms of production has taught me what I am up against and actually clarified for me where I'd like to go.
As a parent, I would feel comfortable taking a mature 16- or 17-year-old to this movie. I feel dismayed that they wouldn't now be able to see it in a theater. Yet there is a double standard, because anyone can watch it at their home.
As a parent, I would feel comfortable taking a mature 16, 17-year-old to this movie. I feel dismayed that they wouldn't now be able to see it in a theater. Yet there is a double standard because anyone can watch it at their home.
And then of course there is a whole dialogue between the spirit of the film camera, which is something I was focusing on very strongly in the film.