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Bruce McDonald (director)

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Bruce McDonald
McDonald at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival
Born (1959-05-28) May 28, 1959 (age 65)
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Alma materRyerson University
OccupationFilm director

Bruce McDonald (born May 28, 1959) is a Canadian film and television director, best known for his award-winning cult films Roadkill (1989) and Hard Core Logo (1996).[1]

Early life

McDonald was born in Kingston, Ontario, and later graduated from the film program at Ryerson University.

His first movie was The Plunge Murderer, followed by a feature-length zombie flick, Our Glorious Dead, made with his grandfather's Super 8 camera and shot on location at his Rexdale high school, North Albion Collegiate. The film premiered in the school cafeteria and made one hundred dollars.[citation needed]

Career

McDonald's more successful feature films have included Let Me See(...), Knock Knock, Roadkill (1989), Highway 61 (1991), for which he won Best Director at the highly regarded San Sebastián International Film Festival, Dance Me Outside (1994), Hard Core Logo (1996) and Picture Claire (2001).

Roadkill won most Outstanding Canadian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and McDonald earned some notoriety and media attention when he quipped, while accepting his $25,000 prize from TIFF for Roadkill, that he planned to spend the money on "a big chunk of hash".[2][3][4][5]

Hard Core Logo has been frequently ranked amongst the greatest movies ever to come out of Canada, winning numerous awards, including Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto Film Critics Association awards in 1996 and Best Screenplay at the Vancouver Film Festival.[6]

He has also directed episodes of many television series, including Lonesome Dove, Twitch City, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Instant Star, Queer as Folk, ReGenesis, This Is Wonderland and Cracked.

He completed shooting The Tracey Fragments (2006) in Toronto, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. While shooting the scenes took him only two weeks, he spent nine months in post-production.

He directed the horror film Pontypool, which was selected as one of the best Canadian films of 2008 by the Toronto International Film Festival and was released in March 2009.

He recently completed shooting a video and documentary, entitled The Rawside of Die Mannequin with Canadian sleaze rock band Die Mannequin.[7]

This Movie Is Broken, a concert film on Broken Social Scene was released on June 25, 2010.[8]

In 2009, McDonald directed three short films for the cross-platform project City Sonic. McDonald, along with six other directors, shot 20 short films about Toronto musicians and the places where their musical lives were transformed. McDonald directed films starring Die Mannequin, the Cancer Bats and Geddy Lee of Rush.[9] His 2010 film Trigger was the first film ever screened at Toronto's new TIFF Bell Lightbox.[10]

Hard Core Logo 2 premiered at the Whistler Film Festival on December 4, 2010 with the members of Die Mannequin and McDonald walking the red carpet. It had its second screening at the Victoria Film Festival on February 6, 2011.

In 2011, he produced the documentary television series Yonge Street: Toronto Rock & Roll Stories, focusing on the history of the Yonge Street music scene in Toronto in the 1960s, for Bravo.[11]

In 2014, he directed the horror thriller Hellions (2015) starring Chloe Rose, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and later screened at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.[12][13][14]

Personal life

He currently resides in Toronto with his wife, cinematographer and filmmaker Dany Chiasson, and their daughter.[15]

References

  1. ^ WISE, WYNDHAM. "Hard Core Logo". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  2. ^ "Zombies bring out the best in Bruce McDonald". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  3. ^ Feldbloom-Wood, Rachel. "Bruce McDonald - Bravo!FACT – Director Bio Biography | Watch Drama, Documentary Movies Online". Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  4. ^ "Bruce McDonald's Pontypool: Canadian zombies, eh | Metro News". metronews.ca. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  5. ^ Torontoist. "Director's Cut: Bruce McDonald | culture | Torontoist". Torontoist. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  6. ^ Playback :: Egoyan tops Canada's all-time best movies list
  7. ^ Interview with Care Failure of Die Mannequin about new documentary and video by Mike Bax
  8. ^ Cbc.ca
  9. ^ Citysonic.tv
  10. ^ "How the film Trigger underwent a sex change". The Globe and Mail, September 11, 2010.
  11. ^ "The Strip's musical heyday; Documentary 'Yonge Street - Toronto Rock &Roll Stories' uncovers an era when 'truth was stranger than the publicity'". The Telegraph-Journal, March 21, 2011.
  12. ^ Festival, Toronto International Film. "TIFF.net | Hellions". TIFF. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  13. ^ Tobias, Scott. "Toronto Film Review: 'Hellions'". Variety. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  14. ^ Gayne, Zach. "Sundance 2015 Interview: Bruce McDonald, Chloe Rose, and Robert Patrick on HELLIONS' Bad Moon Rising". TwitchFilm. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  15. ^ "Dany Chiasson taps into the mystery that is Joan of Arc". The Globe and Mail, March 24, 2011.
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