Pleased to announce that Assholes: A Theory has been nominated for three Canadian Screen Awards:
2021 Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program
Ann Bernier, Annette Clarke, John Walker
2021 Best Writing, Documentary
John Walker, Robert Sandler
2021 Best Picture Editing, Documentary
Jeff Warren
Full list: www.academy.ca
Assholes: A Theory is one of the finalists for The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) 2020 screenwriting awards.
By John Walker, director, Assholes: A Theory
If someone had told me I would be having a conversation about assholes with the governor general of New Zealand, Dame Patsy Reddy, and her husband, Sir David Gascoigne, or that I would be sitting beside comedic legend John Cleese as he burst into laughter at the North American premiere of Assholes: A Theory, I would have said, “You’re out of your mind!”
By Marc Glassman, Point of View Magazine
After too many years of assembling top ten lists, I’m feeling more comfortable with offering advice on films I enjoyed during the year without rating them in a numerical format. It’s tough enough to state that these are docs you should see!
The DGC is proud to present this FREE event as part of FIN this year! Come listen to interesting panel discussions with the directors behind some of the Festival’s most anticipated films!
Featuring ARC members John Houston and John Walker, DGC members Atom Egoyan, Julia Ivanova and François Girard, and introducing up and coming Atlantic directors Justin Oakey, Melanie Oates, Megan Wennberg, and Heather Young.
As part of the Wellington Doc Edge Forum, John Walker will be sharing his creative and strategic approach to documentary filmmaking.
The lines between director and cinematographer can often become blurred in documentary filmmaking as the realities of the genre dictate the director and the cinematographer become one and the same person. Some documentary filmmakers choose to capture their art through their own lens — taking complete creative control — whilst others argue that the division of labour is a crucial aspect of effective filmmaking. This masterclass will discuss how being one’s own cinematographer can inform a filmmaker’s visual aesthetic, influence their creative decisions and aid or hinder story development.
John Walker began his relationship with photography when he was eight years old. His first venture into photojournalism came at sixteen when he took his 35mm camera on a ship to the high Arctic. His filmmaking career has since taken him on various adventures around the globe, self-shooting and producing over 100 documentaries. Walker’s development from still photographer to cinematographer to filmmaker, and how he found his way to visual storytelling, will be at the heart of his masterclass.
John Walker Productions’ most recent film Assholes: A Theory celebrated three completely sold out screenings for it’s North American Premiere at Hot Docs 2019. Special featured guests who made the trip to Toronto, along with many of the film’s crew, included the author of the book of the same name, Aaron James, along with Aimée Morrison, Suji Gelerman, Sherry Lee Benson–Podolchuk, Robert Hockett and John Cleese!
By Marc Glassman, POV Magazine
Some thoughts on John Walker’s Assholes, Fred Peabody’s The Corporate Coup d’État and Larry Weinstein’s Propaganda
Georgia O’Keeffe
Review by Susan G. Cole
American photography giant Paul Strand comes under intense scrutiny in Strand: Under The Dark Cloth, part of Hot Docs’s John Walker retrospective.
By Barry Hertz, The Globe and Mail
John Walker was interviewed for The Globe and Mail’s oral history of Hot Docs.
“The concept evolved out of trying to simply support each other’s work, to exhibit it to the public, to have an awards show. We worked on the premise that Canadian audiences in particular wanted documentaries, and that we were pretty good at making them.” – John Walker
