Don Owen (filmmaker)

Don Owen
Born	(1931-09-19)September 19, 1931 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died	February 21, 2016(2016-02-21) (aged 84) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation(s)	Film director Screenwriter
Years active	1962 - 1988

Don Owen (September 19, 1931 – February 21, 2016) was a Canadian film director, writer and producer.

Owen worked for Canada's National Film Board, producing short documentaries in the 1960s, and the dramatic film Nobody Waved Goodbye (1964), which was the NFB's first full-length feature. A sequel, Unfinished Business followed in 1984.

He and fellow NFB director Donald Brittain co-directed the 1965 documentary portrait of Leonard Cohen, Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen. The same year, he also completed High Steel, a fifteen-minute colour documentary about the Canadian Caughnawaga First Nations peoples who worked on Manhattan skyscraper projects. On July 31, 1965, in an interview with Dusty Vineberg of the Montreal Star, Owen attributed the success of High Steel to the fact that he wrote, directed, and edited it himself, calling this "a welding of three aspects of filmmaking that many young filmmakers increasingly insist is vital to integrity."

For his film on the Canadian Olympic runner Bruce Kidd he persuaded poet W. H. Auden to write and voice the narration. In 1966 he directed the acclaimed Notes for a Film About Donna and Gail and the following year he directed The Ernie Game, which was entered into the 18th Berlin International Film Festival. In later years, he directed a documentary titled Cowboy and Indian (1972), Partners (1976) and Turnabout (1988), along with an episode of the series Danger Bay (1988).

Owen was the subject of a retrospective at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.

Personal life and death

Owen was a Buddhist and student of the Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Chögyam Trungpa, who had moved to Halifax. Owen spent 1970 and 1971 at Trungpa’s Vajradhatu Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, a type of seminary, in Boulder, Colorado. Trungpa’s organization established Dharmadhatu meditation centres all over North America; in 1972, Owen founded the Toronto Dharmadhatu community at his small farm in Green River, Ontario. From 1976 to 1978, Owen taught film courses at Naropa University, which Trungpa founded in 1974. Owen returned to the seminary in 1990, after his last film, Turnabout. In order to be part of Trungpa’s inner circle, one had to practice complete discretion and keep all activities secret; Owen explained his long absences by telling people that he had to take time off to look after his children while his wife traveled.

In 2011, Owen suffered a stroke and he spent the rest of his life in Toronto’s Kensington Gardens Nursing Home, cared for by Tibetan nurses. Bed-ridden and unable to read or write, he dictated poems to staff and friends; through dictation, he was also working on a screenplay called The Postmistress, in which he wanted Sally Field to play the title role. In early February 2016, he suffered a series of small strokes and stopped eating and drinking. He died on February 21st at age 84. He had been married once and was survived by two sons. His funeral service was the Pure Realm of Shambhala Ceremony at the Shambhala Meditation Centre of Toronto.

Filmography

• A Cool Sound from Hell - feature, Caribou Productions, Sidney J. Furie 1959 - assistant director
• One Man in Muskoka - documentary short, NFB, Don Haldane 1961 - assistant director
• À St-Henri le cinq septembre - documentary, NFB, Hubert Aquin 1962 - cinematographer
• Runner - documentary short, NFB, 1962 - editor, writer, director
• Toronto Jazz - documentary short, NFB, 1963 - editor, writer, director
• Nobody Waved Good-bye - feature, NFB, 1964 - writer, director, co-producer with Roman Kroitor
• Two Men of Montreal - documentary, NFB, 1965 - co-director with Suzanne Angel and Donald Brittain
• You Don’t Back Down - documentary short, NFB, 1965 - director
• High Steel - documentary short, NFB, 1965 - editor, writer, director
• Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen - documentary, NFB, 1965 - co-director with Donald Brittain
• Notes for a Film About Donna & Gail - short film, NFB, 1966 - director, co-writer with Gerald Taaffe
• A Further Glimpse of Joey - short film, NFB, 1966 - director
• Telescope - Monique Leyrac in Concert - TV series episode, CBC, 1966 - director
• The Ernie Game - feature, NFB, 1967 - writer, director
• Gallery: A View of Time, Albright-Knox Art Gallery 1969 - producer, director
• Cowboy and Indian - documentary, NFB, 1972 - editor, writer, director
• To See Ourselves: Changes - TV series episode, CBC, 1974 - director
• The Collaborators: Undercover - TV series episode, CBC, 1974 - director
• The Collaborators: Dreams and Things - TV series episode, CBC, 1974 - director
• The Collaborators: A Little Something for the Old Age - TV series episode, CBC, 1974 - director
• Canadian Film Makers: Not Far From Home- TV series episode, CBC, 1974 - director
• Partners - feature, Clearwater Films, 1976 - co-writer, co-producer, director
• Holstein - documentary short, NFB, 1979 - editor, director
• Spread Your Wings: Tanya’s Puppet - TV series episode, 1981 - director
• Unfinished Business - feature, NFB, 1984 - writer, director, co-producer with Annette Cohen
• Danger Bay: Jan - TV series episode, CBC 1988 - director
• Turnabout - feature, Zebra Film & NFB 1988 - writer, director, co-producer with Don Haig

(Due to confusion with the wrestling promotor Don Owen, biographers have incorrectly credited Owen the filmmaker as being the cinematographer on the film Wrestling. Owen did not work on that film.)

External links

• Watch films by Don Owen at the National Film Board of Canada
• Don Owen at the Canadian Film Encyclopedia
• Making Movie History: Don Owen, interview at NFB.ca