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Paul Tom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Tom is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, most noted for his films Baggage (Bagages) and Alone (Seuls).[1]

Born to Cambodian parents in a refugee camp in Thailand, Tom came to Canada with his family in childhood.[2] He studied communications and media at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and animation at Concordia University,[3] and created the short films Que je vive en paix in 2011 and Un pays de silences in 2013.

Baggage, his first mid-length documentary, was released in 2017, and centred on a group of immigrant students enrolled in a theatre program.[4] The film won several awards on the film festival circuit, including the prix Télébec for best mid-length film at the 2017 Abitibi-Témiscamingue International Film Festival,[5] the Prix Public for Best Canadian Film at the 2017 Quebec City Film Festival,[6] and the Women Inmate Jury Award at the 2017 Montreal International Documentary Festival. Following its television broadcast on Télé-Québec in December 2017, it won two Gémeaux Awards in 2018, for Best Documentary Program or Series (Arts and Culture) and Best Direction in a Documentary (Biography, Arts and Culture, Nature, Science or Environment).[7] It was also nominated for Best Writing in a Documentary.[8]

His full-length documentary feature Alone was released in 2021,[3] and was a Prix Iris nominee for Best Documentary Film at the 24th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2022.[9] Tom and illustrator Mélanie Baillargé subsequently published a book adaptation of the film, under the French title Seuls in 2022[10] and the English title Alone: The Journey of Three Young Refugees in 2023.[2] The French edition was a Governor General's Award nominee for French-language children's illustration at the 2022 Governor General's Awards,[11] and the English translation by Arielle Aaronson was nominated for the Governor General's Award for French to English translation at the 2023 Governor General's Awards.[12]

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