Anne Wheeler

Anne Wheeler, OC, is a Canadian film and television writer, producer, and director.

Biography

After graduating in mathematics from the University of Alberta, Wheeler was a computer programmer before traveling abroad. Her years of travels inspired her to become a storyteller and when she returned she joined a group of old friends to form a film collective. From 1975 to 1985 she worked for the NFB where she made her first feature film, A War Story, which was about her father, Ben Wheeler and his time as a doctor in a P.O.W. camp during World War II. The war is a common theme in her work and she revisited it later in her films Bye Bye Blues and The War Between Us. Her first non-NFB film was Loyalties in 1986.
In addition to her films, Wheeler has directed episodes of Anne with an E, Private Eyes, Strange Empire, The Romeo Section, The Guard, This Is Wonderland, Da Vinci's Inquest, and Cold Squad.

Awards and honors

Wheeler has been nominated four times for the Genie Award for Best Achievement in Direction for her films Loyalties, Cowboys Don't Cry, Bye Bye Blues, and Suddenly Naked. Her 1998 television miniseries, The Sleep Room, won Gemini awards for best television movie and best direction.
In 2017 Wheeler won a Leo Award for Best Direction for the Hallmark movie Stop the Wedding.
Wheeler was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995. In 2012 she received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. Wheeler has also been awarded seven honorary doctorates and is the first woman to be given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of Canada.

Filmography

Film

Documentary film

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer
1975	Great Grand Mother
1976	Augusta
1981	A War Story
2000	The Orkney Lad: The Story of Isabel Gunn
2013	Chi
1977	Happily Unmarried
1978	Priory: The Only Home I've Got
1979	Triangle Island
1979	Welfare Mothers
1979	Never a Dull Moment
1983	Great Days in the Rockies
1983	From Bears to Bartok
1984	Children Of Alcohol
1984	This Is Only a Test

Short film

Year	Title	Director	Writer
1977	Happily Unmarried
1978	Teach Me to Dance
2000	Legs Apart

Television

TV movies

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Writer
1993	The Diviners				3-hour special
1993	Other Women's Children
1995	The War Between Us
1996	Mother Trucker: The Diana Kilmury Story
2002	The Investigation
2003	Betrayed
2004	A Beachcombers Christmas
2006	Christmas on Chestnut Street
2007	Mom, Dad and Her
2008	Mail Order Bride
2008	Living Out Loud
2008	Dancing Trees
2009	The Gambler, the Girl and the Gunslinger
2012	The Horses of McBride
2014	The Color of Rain
2015	A Country Wedding
2016	Stop the Wedding				Best Direction, 2017 Leo Awards
2023	Friends & Family Christmas

TV series

Year	Title	Notes
1984	For the Record	Episode 46: A Change of Heart
1984-1985	Global Playhouse	Episodes One's a Heifer and To Set Our House in Order
1985	The Ray Bradbury Theater	Episode The Martian
1990	Mom P.I.	2 episodes
1992	North of 60	2 episodes
1995	Jake and the Kid	2 episodes
1996	The Adventures of Shirley Holmes	Pilot
1998	Cold Squad	3 episodes
1998	The Sleep Room	Miniseries
1998-2003	Da Vinci's Inquest	7 episodes
2000	Mysterious Ways	Episode 6:Twins
2000	Beggars and Choosers	1 episode
2004-2005	This Is Wonderland	8 episodes
2005	Godiva's	2 episode
2006	Jozi-H	2 episodes
2006	The Guard	2 episodes
2014	Heartland	Episodes 5: Endings and Beginnings and 6: Steal Away
2014	When Calls the Heart	Episode 9: Change of Heart
2021	Firefly Lane	Episodes 3: Dancing Queens and 4: Love is a Battlefield