
Cynthia Scott
Academy Award-winning director Cynthia Scott was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and worked in theater as a second assistant director. She also worked in various positions for television, including public affairs producer in Canada and England before becoming a staff director at the National Film Board of Canada in 1972. While there, she directed several documentaries, including The Ungrateful Land: Rich Carrier Remembers Ste-Justine (1972), which won a Canadian Film Award. The National Film Board, funded by the Canadian public, also produced Flamenco at 5:15 (1983), which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.
Turning to feature films, Scott co-wrote and directed Strangers in Good Company (1990), a docudrama about a group of older women stranded in a farmhouse when their tour bus breaks down. Scott and her co-writers scripted an outline and the dialogue was largely improvised by the cast of professional and amateur actors. It played to enthusiastic audiences in both Canada (where it was a box-office hit) and the United States, also winning several awards at international film festivals.
Select Filmography
Some Natives of Churchill (1973)
For the Love of Dance (1981)
Strangers in Good Company (1990)