1935 - Toronto, Ontario
________

Don Owen was an outstandingly original Canadian filmmaker with films such as Nobody Waved Goodbye (1964) and The Ernie Game (1967) to his credit. Both were feature-length dramas he directed during his time at the NFB.

He was a poet and student of anthropology at the University of Toronto before embarking on a film career. He initially wrote for sponsored films and worked as an assistant director for the CBC. He joined the NFB in 1960, and worked as a cameraman on two key documentaries of the period, La lutte (1961) and À Saint-Henri le cinq septembre (1962), experiments in direct cinema shot by several cinematographers. His first film, Runner (1962), was a documentary on long-distance runner Bruce Kidd, one of the few Canadian Olympic athletes of world calibre at that time. The film, which garnered international praise, offers early evidence of Owen's characteristic style, including the lyrical treatment of the subject, the jazz on the soundtrack and the marked loneliness of the protagonist.

He then wrote and directed Nobody Waved Goodbye (1964), the first feature-length drama produced at the NFB. It was highly successful, and became a symbol of the development and identity of "art house" film in English-speaking Canada between 1960 and 1970. Shot in a style resembling direct cinema and incorporating a great deal of improvisation, the film attracted attention for both its original approach and its astute sociological observation of the middle classes and Canadian youth of the period.

Owen directed two other significant dramas for the NFB, Notes for a Film about Donna and Gail (1966) and most importantly, The Ernie Game (1967), which earned world-wide fame and was named best Canadian feature film of the year. At the same time he continued to make documentaries, including vivid portraits of the art scene in Toronto and Montreal, with Toronto Jazz (1964), about avant-garde musicians (like Michael Snow), and Ladies and Gentleman... Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965), co-directed with Donald Brittain. Owen was very active in 1965, directing three other films including High Steel. This was very complicated to shoot, as it portrayed Mohawk men relocated in New York to work at perilous heights building the steel frames of skyscrapers under construction. Owen left the NFB in 1969, but worked with the board again on Unfinished Business (1984), a co-production with the CBC. This feature film was conceived as a sequel to Nobody Waved Goodbye. It updated the sociological reflections of the earlier film, but did not have the same impact.

Unfailingly interested in art, he made several other documentaries on the subject during the 1960s and 1970s: Gallery: A View of Time (1967), Snow in Venice (1971), Graham Coughtry in Ibiza (1971) and Cowboy and Indian (1972). His fiction work, more sporadic and less influential than his first films, nonetheless looks at contemporary society with an observant eye and in a highly personal style. Partners (1975) in particular won praise from critics.

 See also (in English):
Don Owen - Notes on a Filmmaker and His Culture, Steve Gravestock, TIFF / Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005.
Don Owen, entry from The Canadian Film Encyclopedia, in Film Reference Library, Toronto International Film Festival Group:

http://www.filmreferencelibrary.ca/index.asp?layid=46&csid1=54&navid=46

Selected Filmography (director)
Runner, 1962
Nobody Waved Good-bye, 1964
Toronto Jazz, 1964
High Steel, 1965
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen, 1965 (co-directed with Donald Brittain)
Monique Leyrac in Concert, 1965
Two Men of Montreal, 1965 (co-directed with Donald Brittain)
You Don't Back Down, 1965
A Further Glimpse of Joey, 1966
Notes for a Film about Donna and Gail, 1966
The Ernie Game, 1967
Gallery: A View of Time, 1967
Crimes of the Future, 1970
Subway or Spain, 1970
Changes, 1971
Far from Home, 1971
Graham Coughtry in Ibiza, 1971
Richler of St. Urbain Street, 1971
Snow in Venice, 1971
Cowboy and Indian, 1972
Faces of Ontario/Ontario Towns and Villages series, 1972-73
Not Far from Home, 1973
The St. Lawrence, 1973
Partners, 1975
Holstein, 1978
Spread Your Wings: Tanya's Puppet, 1981
Unfinished Business, 1984
Danger Bay series, 1987
Turnabout, 1987

» Watch Don Owen's films at NFB.ca