Biography

McDonald graduated from the film program at Ryerson University. His first movie was The Plunge Murderer, followed by a feature-length zombie flick, Our Glorious Dead, made with his grandfather's super-8 camera and shot on location at his Rexdale, Ontario high school, North Albion Collegiate. The film premiered in the school cafeteria and made $100.

His more successful feature films have included Let Me See(...), Knock Knock, Roadkill (1989), Highway 61 (1991), Dance Me Outside (1994), Hard Core Logo (1996) and Claire’s Hat (2001). Roadkill won most Outstanding Canadian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and Hard Core Logo has been frequently ranked amongst the greatest movies ever to come out of Canada.

He has also directed episodes of many television series, including Lonesome Dove, Twitch City, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Instant Star, Queer as Folk, ReGenesis and This Is Wonderland.

He completed shooting The Tracey Fragments (2006) in Toronto, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. While shooting the scenes took him only two weeks, he spent nine months in post-production.

He was formerly romantically linked with fellow Canadian director Valerie Buhagiar. (McDonald, on the 15th Anniversary DVD commentary of Roadkill, even said he had written the part of Ramona exclusively for Buhagiar, with the intention of making her his girlfriend.)

He currently resides in Toronto with his partner and film-maker Dany Chiasson and young daughter, Charlie Yoko.

He recently completed shooting a video and documentary, entitled The Rawside of Die Mannequin with Canadian sleaze rock band Die Mannequin.

References

External links

• Bruce McDonald Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos