AUBREY NEALON - 2004 Don Haig Award Winner

The son of American draft dodgers, Aubrey Nealon was born in BC's remote Slocan Valley, where he was raised free of such modern contrivances as telephones, electricity, and regular meals. At age fifteen, he headed for Vancouver and embarked on a career as a youth actor, highlighted by his turn as Olaf the Finnish Exchange Student on the teen soap opera Fifteen. Aubrey's interest soon moved behind the camera, where he observed that people seemed generally to be having a better time, and in 1995 he enrolled at the Vancouver Film School. Upon graduating he worked as the assistant to director Jonathan Tummuz on the feature Rupert's Land, and soon after he received a Telefilm/Director's Guild of Canada Kick Start grant and made his first short film House Arrest. The film screened at a number of international film festivals and was broadcast on the CBC.

With his follow-up film Abe's Manhood, Aubrey won a 2000 Shavick Award, recognizing the best emerging directors in Western Canada. The film debuted at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival and went on to screen at over 20 international festivals, including in Official Competition at Montreal, Torino, and Uppsala. It was broadcast on Film Four in England and on the CBC, where its recent airing on Canadian Reflections garnered the highest ratings in the program's history.

Aubrey was accepted into the Canadian Film Centre's directing lab in 2000, followed by the Short Film Program in 2001, where he co-wrote and directed In Memoriam. Debuting at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival, the film received rave reviews, and was later selected for inclusion in the Roger's Video compilation Made in Canada: The Best of the CFC.

Aubrey directed three episodes of the Comedy Network series Patti. Two of his feature scripts are under option, The Motherland and Idaho Peak, winner of the 2002 Jim Burt Screenwriting Prize. Aubrey teaches part-time at the Vancouver Film School, and is writing his latest full-length script The Royal Corpse with Telefilm funding.

Aubrey directed his first feature film A Simple Curve (working title: Idaho Peak) in the fall of 2004. Shot on location in the interior of BC, the film had the usual stresses of low-budget production -- a ridiculously tight schedule, not enough money, and uncooperative weather. The 35mm theatrical feature stars Kris Lemche, Michael Hogan, and Matt Craven and is distributed by Montreal-based Domino Films.

A Simple Curve, opened in theatres in Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Nelson, B.C. on February 3, 2006 - with other cities to follow.

"What's certain is that I had an amazing time, learned a great deal, and feel extremely fortunate to have had the experience. It's also clear to me that the Don Haig Award played a very real part in allowing me the opportunity, and I'll always be grateful for that. Not only did the award add to a sort of momentum that was pushing me and the project forward, but in the weeks leading up to production, when the film's financing was still in doubt, I was living off the prize money and nothing else. I'm simply not sure how I would have survived without it."