Zoe Dirse is a graduate of the University of Toronto with degrees in Psychology and Education. She started her career in cinematography by joining the Camera Union IATSE 644 in Toronto in 1979. In 1982 she joined the camera department at the National Film Board in Montreal and worked there until 1997 shooting over 70 documentaries and dramas. Since 1997 she has been freelancing as a cinematographer and director, based in Toronto.

Her best known films are Forbidden Love (a docudrama shot in 16 and 35 millimeter) which won best long documentary at the 1993 Genies and the Prix du Public at the International Festival of Film in Creteil, France. Erotica was nominated for best documentary at the 1997 Genies and for best documentary and best cinematography at the 1998 Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. Shadowmaker was a Hot Docs nominee in 1997 and won best long documentary at the 1998 Genies. Balkan Journey was a 1996 Genie nominee and won a certificate of merit in 1997 at the Golden Gate awards in San Francisco, California. Jane Rule: Fiction and Other Truths won a Genie in1995 and was nominated for best cinematography at Hot Docs in 1996. Vendetta Song won the CIDA award in 2007 and the audience award at Hot Docs in 2007.

Zoe’s documentary career has taken her around the world and given her a vast cultural experience with insights into different societies. She has worked on nearly every continent and dodged bullets in numerous war zones, such as the Baltics in 1991, the Balkans in 1994, and the Kurdish rebel zone of southeastern Turkey in 2003. In the past 10 years she has had the opportunity to pursue several long and short dramatic projects, including Body Parts, which was shot in Montreal in 2000.

Her most recent documentaries include Vendetta Song, Runaway Grooms (Gemini winner of best documentary in 2005), Jambo Kenya and Tiger which aired in 2005 on Vision, CBC, TVO and Omni. Skate To Survive, The M Word and Shift Focus aired on Omni in 2008 and 2009.

Currently, she is teaching cinematography at Sheridan College and continuing to shoot documentaries in Canada and abraod.

Zoe Dirse is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers and is a Director of Photography with the Quebec based union, AQTIS. She is featured in the June 2005 issue of the CSC News. To access the article, go to www.csc.ca and click on News.

Back to Goodmans Presents | Women Behind the Lens