Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan (in Armenian, ԱԱԿԸԁ ԵԵԲԸԵԡԶ ) (born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian film director of Armenian origin.. Some recurring themes in his work are alienation and loneliness, which he deals with through characters whose interactions are mediated by technology, bureaucracy, or other power structures. Some of his films follow non-linear chronological structures, in which events are organized non-sequentially in order to provoke emotional reactions in the viewer while hiding the key to the story. His first film, Next of Kin, dates from 1984. Notable films from his career include Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, Ararat and Where the Truth Lies.

Professional career

This Armenian-Canadian filmmaker began his career with Next of Kin, from 1984, a film that poses the impersonation of a personality through lies. Family Viewing , from 1987, his second feature film, follows the path already traced in his debut film: the family as reducing and representative nucleus of society. Speaking Parts (1989), in Egoyan's own words, moves "in the field of memory and desire."

The following decade saw the release of El liquidador, from 1991, his most complex film, which shows the emotional essence of some characters who make their work an unsettling vital catharsis with useless consequences. After shooting Gross Misconduct in 1992 for television, he returned to the cinema with Calendar 1993, a journey into the relationships between a Canadian-Armenian photographer (in charge of making a calendar with photographs of twelve ancient churches in Armenia), his wife and the guide who accompanies them. But it will be with Exótica , in 1994, when he achieves his consecration as the author of an extraordinary and very personal style. His definitive international projection is due to his next film, titled The Sweet Hereafter, from 1997, a fable that investigates the feeling of guilt of the members of a rural community who have lost their children after the sinking of the school bus in a lake. Felicia's Journey, from 1999, is by far his most accessible film, less hermetic, but no less risky than his previous ones.

For its part, Ararat, from 2002, seeks to recreate the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turkish-Ottoman authority in the 1910s through a story within a story. In 2005, the author directed Where the Truth Lies, a drama about a death that occurred in 1957 after which two well-loved and successful presenters of a Telethon part ways for good, completing the picture with a reporter investigating the events. some decades later. The film starred Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth.

After several years without activity, there has been speculation about a possible remastering of the old but popular series Life with Derek, directed by Egoyan.

Filmography

Cinema

Egoyan and her wife, actress Arsinee Khanjian, who has participated in several of her films.

Egoyan, October 2005.

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards

Cannes International Film Festival