Success stories - Atom Egoyan: Directing his own future

September 2010

Atom Egoyan is one of many Canadians working in the film industry both domestically and on the international stage. However, unlike many of his contemporaries, he makes no attempts to camouflage his roots.

His critically acclaimed work often features Canadian settings, and a Canadian cast and crew telling stories accessible and appreciated by audiences worldwide.  For this Toronto-based director, it is his own personal story as an immigrant that shaped his award-winning career.

Egoyan was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1960 to Armenian parents. Shushan and Joseph Yeghoyan ran a successful furniture store, but soon decided that Canada would be a better home for their young family. Upon arriving in Victoria, British Columbia, they changed the family surname Yeghoyan to Egoyan, hoping to ensure a successful fresh start.

As he told BBC News, his experience as an immigrant was very important in his formation. He said, “My parents made the curious decision when they came to Canada to move to the west coast—Victoria—which was at the time a very isolated community. We were the only Armenian family there as I was being raised and it meant that I became very aware at an early age of the notion of identity as being something of a construction.

“English is not my mother tongue and I remember very clearly not being able to communicate. Going to school and having to, and wanting nothing more than to be like everyone else. That was a very important part of my upbringing, this idea of shedding an identity and embracing another one.”

As a young adult, Egoyan would move to Toronto to attend university and explore both his Armenian roots and his Canadian identity. He immersed himself into the arts community and began writing and producing his own work, in addition to directing television programs and documentaries.

His feature film “Exotica” (1994) garnered attention and praise from critics both in Canada and abroad. He followed it up with “The Sweet Hereafter” (1997) for which he received two Academy Award nominations (Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay).

As many critics have noted, elements such as a search for memory, truth, and understanding weave themselves throughout the majority of Egoyan’s films. Egoyan explains: “I think it’s a huge part of my earlier work, and when you are new to a country and trying to assimilate you become really aware of what it takes to be a functioning member of a community.

“You become much more aware of personality as a construct, and the things you can absorb and the things you can’t. I’m a fully assimilated member of my culture, but I also remember it was something that I learned, and it wasn’t completely natural, and it does form you in a certain way.”

Egoyan’s current portfolio includes 13 feature films; opera productions; art installations for the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Artangel in London and Le Fresnoy in France; and a three-year teaching stint at the University of Toronto.  His efforts to broaden and enrich the artistic community were recognized in 1999, when he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

In an 2010 interview with Michael Gregoris,  Egoyan reflected on his success aftertheOscar nominations: “It was surreal because it came out of nowhere… it was an incredible ride and it changed a lot of things in my career…Mostly, I was proud at the fact that it was for a Canadian director and writer.”

Read more Success Stories.