Deborah Wainwright

Deb is an award-winning director/producer and writer specializing in documentary and factual storytelling. She is driven to tell challenging stories about extraordinary people or situations, projects that examine and expand our perspectives. Most recently, Deb directed a one-hour documentary for CBC’s The Passionate Eye called Doppelgängers: Face to Face which brings together twin strangers from around the world to investigate the growing passion for finding one’s “second self.” Deb directed the Canadian Screen Award-nominated Evil by Design: Surviving Nygård, a 3 x 60min documentary series for the CBC. The film dissects the culture and events that enabled accused sexual predator Peter Nygård to abuse his power for so long. She was also one of the series producers, the director, and one of the writers, on the 4 x 60min true crime documentary series for CBC, The Oland Murder, for which she garnered 2 Canadian Screen Award nominations. Deb’s touch as a directorial mentor is felt in the Leo Awards winning documentary Across & Down about the fight for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the renowned New York Times crossword puzzle. For almost a decade Deb was the Supervising Producer and Head of Creative at Force Four Entertainment (an Entertainment One company). As such, she acted as Show Runner on all productions including the groundbreaking documentary series’, Keeping Canada Alive (CBC) and Keeping Canada Safe, the social-experiment programs, The Audience (Corus) and First Dates (Corus), and the youth program, Tricked (YTV). From children’s shows (Sesame Street Canada - CBC) and music documentaries (Barenaked in America - Feature) to factual series (Border Security: Canada’s Front Line (Corus/Netflix) and documentary one-offs (Every Body - Bravo). Deb has a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology, Human Learning and Development from the University of British Columbia and a PhD in Communication from the prestigious Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches on the faculty of Capilano University’s School of Motion Picture Arts.