Don Owen

Don Owen, perhaps best known as the director of the seminal 1964 feature Nobody Waved Goodbye, is one of the central figures in the development of English-Canadian cinema. Owen spent much of his career at the National Film Board of Canada, working on both short documentary films, including Runner; Cowboy and Indian; and You Don’t Back Down, and feature-length works such as The Ernie Game (which sparked a scandal in Parliament); the innovative, Godard-influenced short features Notes for a Film about Donna and Gail; and Ladies and Gentlemen—Mr. Leonard Cohen, a portrait of the poet co-directed with Donald Brittain.

In Don Owen: Notes on a Filmmaker and His Culture, the first book-length treatment of themes and motifs in Owen’s work, Steve Gravestock situates Owen within a cultural context while focusing on the development of the English-Canadian film industry in the 1960s and beyond. The book also features interviews with Owen and many of his principal collaborators.

Published by the Toronto International Film Festival and distributed in Canada by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Distributed outside Canada by Indiana University Press.