Atom Egoyan, Egyptian-Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter
Atom Egoyan (; Armenian: Աթոմ Եղոյեան, romanized: Atom Yeghoyan; born July 19, 1960) is an Armenian-Canadian film and stage director, screenwriter, and producer. 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). Egoyan is considered by local film critic Geoff Pevere to be one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation.His 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.