Giles Walker (January 17, 1946 - March 23, 2020) was a Scottish-born Canadian film director.

Biography

Giles Walker, born in 1946 in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

, received a B.A. from the

University of New Brunswick The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is a public university with two primary campuses in Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick. It is the oldest English-language university in Canada, and among the oldest public universities in North Americ ...

and an M.A. from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

Film School in 1972. He joined the Canadian National Film Board soon after, directing documentaries, then switching to dramas in 1977. ''Bravery in the Field'' was nominated for a live-action short Oscar in 1979. ''The Masculine Mystique'' (directed with John N. Smith), the first of a trio of NFB movies dealing with issues of gender relations, showed Walker's experimental side, working with non-professional actors and the technique of improvisation. The two other films in the series, however, moved closer to an easy, palatable Hollywood style – successfully in ''90 Days'' but less so in ''The Last Straw''. Perhaps Walker's most successful fictional work is ''Princes in Exile'', a film about a summer camp for children with cancer, notable for delicate treatment of the subject and a moving lack of sentimentality. Walker died in March 2020.

Partial filmography

* '' Bravery in the Field'' (1979) - director, writer * ''

The Masculine Mystique ''The Masculine Mystique'' is a Canadian docufiction film directed by Giles Walker and John N. Smith and released in 1984. The film centres on Alex ( Sam Grana), Blue ( Stefan Wodoslawsky), Mort ( Mort Ransen) and Ashley (Ashley Murray), four m ...

'' (1984) - co-writer, co-producer, co-director with John N. Smith * ''

90 Days ''90 Days'' is a video news magazine produced by McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, MO and distributed at the end of every business quarter (hence the show's title) through the mail to employees and shareholders of the company in VHS format. From it ...

'' (1985) – writer, producer, director * '' The Last Straw'' (1987) – writer, producer, director * '' Princes in Exile'' (1990) – director * ''

Ordinary Magic ''Ordinary Magic'' is a 1993 Canadian film about a boy who is raised in India by his father. The story is based on the novel Ganesh by Malcolm Bosse with Canada substituting in the film for the book's Midwestern USA location. This film marked the ...

'' (1993) - director * '' Never Too Late'' (1996) – director * ''

Little Men ''Little Men,'' or ''Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys,'' is a children's novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), which was first published in 1871 by Roberts Brothers. The book reprises characters from her 1868–69 two-volume ...

'' (1999) – director, 1 episode * '' Blind Terror'' (2001) – director * '' Tales from the Neverending Story'' (2001) – director, 2 episodes * '' Fries with That?'' (2004, YTV) – director, 11 episodes * '' Doctor*Ology'' (2007,

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

) – director, 2 episodes

References

External links

*
Films by Giles Walker
at the National Film Board of Canada

Biography

Partial filmography

References

External links

See also