Borsos, Phillip

▪ 1996

      Canadian film director (b. May 5, 1953, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia—d. Feb. 1, 1995, Vancouver, B.C.), was a visionary perfectionist who captured the haunting beauty of the Canadian landscape in films that featured a poetic storytelling style. While in high school he was given a 16-mm Bolex camera, which sparked a lifelong obsession with filmmaking. After making a series of short documentary films about workers and craftsmen, notably Cooperage (1976), Spartree (1977), and the Academy Award-nominated Nails (1979), Borsos made an extraordinary feature-film debut with The Grey Fox (1982), a romantic saga about Bill Miner, a stagecoach bandit who turned to robbing trains in turn-of-the-century British Columbia. That film won a Genie award as best picture at the Canadian Film Awards. Borsos directed four other feature films—The Mean Season (1985), One Magic Christmas (1985), Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1988), and Far from Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1995)—before succumbing to acute myeloid leukemia.

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