Phillip Borsos

Borsos, Phillip

 Phillip Borsos, film director (b at Hobart, Tasmania 5 May 1953; d at Vancouver 1 Feb 1995). After a successful career producing and directing theatrical short subjects, he gained international recognition with his first feature film, The Grey Fox, the true story of train robber Bill Miner. Borsos was named best director and The Grey Fox was named best film at the 1983 Canadian Film Awards. The Grey Fox is considered one of the finest Canadian films ever made and contributed to a growing confidence in Canadian filmmaking.

Borsos had an early interest in film and acquired a 16 mm movie camera when he was in high school in Maple Ridge, BC. He studied film at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts and the Vancouver School of Art as well as apprenticing himself at Alpha Cine, a Vancouver film laboratory. In 1976 he formed Mercury Pictures. Three of his early films, Cooperage (1976), Spartree (1977) and Nails (1980), were named Best Theatrical Short at the Canadian Film Awards. In addition, Nails received an Academy Award nomination.

Borsos's films have been praised for their distinctive visual style and their poetic realism. After completing two feature films, The Mean Season (1985) and One Magic Christmas (1985), Borsos was mired for almost a decade struggling to complete the star-crossed Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990) and an adaptation of John Irving's The Cider House Rules, which was never shot. Borsos's final film wasFar From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1994), much of which was shot on his farm on Mayne Island, BC. He died after a 10-month fight with leukemia.