Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan (born 1960) is an Armenian-Canadian filmmaker and a leading figure of the Toronto New Wave whose work is preoccupied with memory, grief, voyeurism, and the way technology mediates intimacy. Born in Cairo to Armenian-Egyptian painters and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, he studied international relations at the University of Toronto, where he rediscovered his Armenian heritage. He emerged through a string of distinctive independent features in the 1980s and made his international breakthrough with Exotica (1994), set in a Toronto strip club. The Sweet Hereafter (1997), adapted from Russell Banks's novel about a small town in the aftermath of a school-bus crash, won the Grand Prix at Cannes and earned him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada and frequently casts his wife, the actress Arsinée Khanjian.