Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan (; ; born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian filmmaker. He was part of a loosely affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica (1994), a film set primarily in and around the fictional Exotica strip club. Egoyan's most critically acclaimed film is the drama The Sweet Hereafter (1997), for which he received two Academy Award nominations, and his biggest commercial success is the erotic thriller Chloe (2009). He is considered by local film critic Geoff Pevere to be one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation. Egoyan's work often explores themes of alienation and isolation, featuring characters whose interactions are mediated through technology, bureaucracy, or other power structures. Egoyan's films often follow non-linear plot structures, in which events are placed out of sequence in order to elicit specific emotional reactions from the audience by withholding key information. In 2008, Egoyan received the Dan David Prize for "Creative Rendering of the Past." Egoyan later received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, Canada's highest royal honour in the performing arts, in 2015. Early life and education Egoyan was born Atom Yeghoyan on July 19, 1960, in Cairo in what was then the United Arab Republic to Armenian-Egyptian painters Shushan and Joseph Yeghoyan. He was named Atom to mark the completion of Egypt's first nuclear reactor. Egoyan has a younger sister, Eve. In 1963, the family moved to Victoria in the Canadian province of British Columbia due to the rise of Arab nationalism, and changed their last name to Egoyan.