Director, Producer, Screenwriter

(b. January 1, 1964 Montreal, Quebec)

Lynne Stopkewich scored a major success with her feature film debut and has since become one of English Canada’s leading young directors.

Stopkewich began making Super 8 movies at the age of thirteen, obtained her BFA in film from Concordia University and made two short films before entering the largely self-directed graduate film programme at the University of British Columbia. She split her time between her ongoing studies and work in the film industry; her efforts as production designer on The Grocer’s Wife (1991) – a film directed by her fellow UBC grad student John Pozer that was a hit at both the Festival de Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festival® – led to production designer roles on other films, including Sandy Wilson's Harmony Cats (1993), which earned her a Genie Award nomination.

In 1994, Stopkewich began work on her thesis film, an adaptation of Barbara Gowdy’s short story "We So Seldom Look on Love." The $80,000, self-financed Kissed debuted at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival; it was the most talked about film at the Festival, became the buzz film at the Sundance Film Festival and screened in the Director’s Fortnight programme at the Festival de Cannes. It went on to enjoy significant commercial success and worldwide theatrical release and launched the careers of both Stopkewich and the film’s star, Molly Parker (both were signed by the William Morris talent agency).

Stopkewich followed Kissed with the less successful Suspicious River (2000), starring Parker as a young woman in a small town who prostitutes herself at the motel where she works. She then directed Lilith on Top (2001), a raucous documentary chronicling the final year of Sarah McLachlan’s Lilith Fair concert tour. She currently directs for television.

Film and video work includes

The $3.00 Wash & Set, 1986 (director; producer; editor)
The Flipped Wig, 1987 (director)
Café Romeo, 1992 (art director)
Tomcat: Dangerous Desires, 1993 (production designer)
Harmony Cats, 1993 (production designer)
Breaking Point, 1993 (production designer) a.k.a.. Double Suspicion
Killer, 1994 (production designer) a.k.a. Bulletproof Heart
The Michelle Apts., 1995 (production designer)
Crash, 1996 (production designer) a.k.a. Breach of Trust/Dirty Money
Second Date, 1999 (special thanks)
Suspicious River, 2000 (director; writer)
Lilith on Top, 2001 (director)
Looking for Leonard, 2002 (co-executive producer with Dean English, Jessica Fraser, Molly Parker)
The Value of X, Bliss series, 2002 (director; writer; TV)
Voice, Bliss series, 2002 (director; writer; TV)
Man from Mars, The Atwood Stories series, 2003 (director; co-writer writer with Doug Taylor; TV)
Windows, The Shields Stories series, 2004 (director; TV)
Longing, The L Word series, 2004 (director; TV)