Niobe Thompson

Edmonton-based writer-director-producer Niobe Thompson grew up in Wabasca, a remote Cree settlement in northern Alberta. His family relocated to Edmonton when he was 14 and he graduated from Strathcona High School in 1991. Niobe’s formal post-secondary education began in Montreal at McGill University, from which he graduated in 1996 with a BA in Humanistic Studies and Russian. He followed that up with an MA in Russian Studies and Translation from the UCL (University College London) School of Slavonic East European Studies in 1998. He has spent time in India, Russia, Siberia, England, Denmark and Sierra Leone and earned his PhD from the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, before founding his company, Clearwater Documentary, in 2008. He quickly established a reputation for shooting wild adventures in remote locations. For example, to make his documentary, The Perfect Runner, he ran Canada’s 125-km Death Race as an experiment in human endurance. For the 3-part mini-series The Great Human Odyssey, he learned to breath-hold dive in order to hunt with Badjao free-diving nomads. His work has been honoured with major awards at Jackson Hole, Banff, Yorkton, and the Canadian Screen Awards. These are his credits as a Director:

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