JUDGES

In 2024, Adrian Wills released A Quiet Girl with the NFB, earning a DGC Allan King Award nomination and becoming one of the year’s most-viewed films on NFB.ca. He then released Leonard Cohen: If It Be Your Will (CBC, SBS Australia), which was nominated for both the Canadian Screen Awards and the Banff Rockie Awards.

With Telefilm Canada’s support, Adrian is adapting Jennie’s Boy (Stephen Leacock Award winner, CBC Canada Reads finalist) with Panoramic Pictures and Sherry White (Maudie). He also co-created the WWII docu-series Zero Hour with CSA winner Eric Sabaag (The Detectives), partnering with Attraction Media.

An alumnus of TIFF Talent Lab and CFC Directors’ Lab, Adrian is known for immersive storytelling. His 13-year collaboration with Cirque du Soleil includes the Grammy-winning All Together Now: The Beatles LOVE (Showtime), Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, and Touch the Sky, a cinéma vérité film with NASA on Cirque founder Guy Laliberté’s space journey. He also worked with James Cameron’s Lightstorm on Avatar: Toruk and directed the filmed version of Luzia for a U.S. release.

In fiction, Adrian directed TV movies Crisis Point and The Surrogacy Trap (Amazon Prime) and co-created CBC’s 21 Thunder, later sold as a Netflix Original and now on Peacock. His true crime work includes Deadly Secrets (ID), Broken Trust, and Somebody’s Hiding Something (Crave).

Holding Canadian, Australian, and EU citizenship, Adrian studied Media at RMIT (Australia) and earned a BFA/MFA in Film Production from Concordia University, where he also lectures.