Don Owen

Don Owen studied anthropology at the University of Toronto and began his career writing sponsored films before joining the National Film Board in 1960. In 1963 while he was with the NFB’s Unit B, he was assigned to direct a half-hour docudrama about a probation officer and a juvenile delinquent. He disobeyed orders and instead delivered the edgy urgent now legendary feature Nobody Waved GoodBye. It was the first film to give Toronto a cinematic identity and remains an inspired work that blends cinémavéritié with fiction. It received critical acclaim and became an icon of English-speaking Canadian filmmakin.  Owen followed up Nobody with two more features the intriguing Notes for a Film about Donna and Gail and The Ernie Game,  a perceptive drama of late 1960s Canuck Zeitgeist. Leaving the NFB in 1969, Owen directed several shorts and unsatisfactory dramas for television including Unfinished Business, a 1984 sequel to Nobody Waved GoodBye.