In 1971 after exploring a variety of careers (computer programmer, musician, actor, high school teacher) and traveling for several years, Anne Wheeler discovered the world of film-making.  Then based in Alberta, she joined a collective of nine eccentric individuals determined to tell stories about Western Canada and within a year they were winning awards at major festivals.  After five years and about twenty short films, Anne left the collective and began making her own documentaries and dramas with the National Film Board including the feature docu-drama, A WAR STORY narrated by Donald Sutherland.

 
Her first feature-length drama LOYALTIES (1987), chronicling an unlikely friendship between a Métis and an English woman in the far north, was a hit at festivals.  Following up with subsequent features COWBOYS DON’T CRY, ANGEL SQUARE and BYE BYE BLUES (inspired by her mother's war years as a musician in a small dance band) Anne was firmly established as a force within the Canadian industry.

Moving further west to BC in 1991 she directed her Genie Award-winning adaptation of Margaret Laurence’s THE DIVINERS, followed by OTHER WOMEN’S CHILDREN an MOW for ABC which aired in both the U.S. and Canada and won a Cable Ace Award for Performance.

Her 1995 THE WAR BETWEEN US, about the Japanese internment in Canada during W.W.II garnered several international awards, including the Red Cross Award for Humanity and a Cable Ace Award for Best Foreign Programming in the U.S.  In 1996 Anne put her directing career aside, to write and produce MOTHER TRUCKER – THE DIANA KILMURY STORY.  When it aired on CBC in 1997 it drew the largest Canadian audience for an MOW to that date.  Immediately on the heels of leading the pilot session of WIDC (1997) she directed the Gemini Award-winning mini-series THE SLEEP ROOM.

Anne directed the first three episodes of DA VINCI’S INQUEST setting the style and cast for the ongoing series that in 2005 morphed itself into a spin-off.  DA VINCI’s has won several Gemini’s and Anne has returned to direct multiple episodes of it as well as other episodics like COLD SQUAD, JAKE AND THE KID and THIS IS WONDERLAND to name only a few.

Her 1998 feature BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE opened in 300 cinemas in the U.S. and ranked 31^st in Hollywood Reporter’s top 200 Independent films of that year.  It continues to be sold world-wide.  MARINE LIFE (2000) and SUDDENLY NAKED (2001) screened at a number of international festivals, including Toronto and Vancouver.

Anne wrote and directed EDGE OF MADNESS (2001), inspired by an Alice Munro short story.  In the summer of the same year, Anne directed THE INVESTIGATION for CTV.  She then lensed the CBC event BETRAYED (2002) chronicling a fictional small town suffering from an outbreak of severe water contamination and in 2004 agreed to join the gang from THE BEACHCOMBERS for Christmas on the hockey rink.  Unfortunately the night before the shoot, she fell and broke her ankle…and ended up directing from a wheelchair.

Anne's stories are built on gentle humor and strong characters living extraordinary lives.  She excels in exploring the human spirit, relationships, a sense of place and a oneness amongst people.  Drawing from her own wide range of experiences, she usually writes or involves herself early in the development of a project which she encourages in other filmmakers.  Her films have touched the hearts of her audiences, earning her SIX HONORARY DOCTORATES, MULTIPLE BEST DIRECTION AWARDS and THE ORDER OF CANADA.