Christopher Donaldson, Artsci’94, found his calling at the tender age of 10: to become Indiana Jones. With money earned from his paper route in Toronto, he saw Raiders of the Lost Ark 14 times in the theatre. “Movies are projections, and one of their true powers is felt when people are in a theatre, the lights go down, and the space between story and audience is erased,” he says. “As a child, it was incredibly magical, and Indiana Jones was everything I wanted to be.”
Eventually, Donaldson realized he couldn’t be Indy. But he discovered his own power: to channel movie magic by connecting scenes and shots in a way that delivers a visceral experience for viewers.
It coalesced while cutting short films at Queen’s. “That was the first time I put two shots together, and all of a sudden, one plus one equals three,” he says. “Sometimes a cut happens that takes on an energy and a life that you never could have anticipated.”
That life has been good to him. Now a father of three with his screenwriter-wife Meredith Vuchnich, Donaldson is an award-winning editor (Canadian Cinema Editors, Directors Guild of Canada, Gemini). His television credits include The Handmaid’s Tale and Reacher. And his film work has paired him with industry greats: Egoyan, Polley, Cronenberg, Coppola.
Donaldson’s career launched after completing his film degree at Queen’s, when he began an editing apprenticeship in Toronto. But the lessons learned are foundational to his approach. He credits one professor in particular, Clarke Mackey, for teaching the value of taking creative risks; that “while there is craft, there is always an element of reinventing the wheel.”
Such an innovative mindset makes Donaldson invaluable to directors. As Sarah Polley puts it, “there is no better collaborator in film than Chris Donaldson.” They worked together on Take This Waltz, and on Women Talking, which won Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2023 Academy Awards and was nominated for Best Picture. “Women Talking was a completely different film before Chris came on board,” says Polley. “He found the film’s voice and pushed it further than I could have dreamed.”
Working with David Cronenberg – a pinch-me milestone for “that movie-obsessed kid who pored over newspaper ads for Scanners and Videodrome and The Fly” – transformed a childhood idol into a peer. Says Cronenberg: “Chris’ creative instincts and skill made a great contribution to my last two films. His sensitivity to performance, pace and tone helped me shape and strengthen Crimes of the Future and The Shrouds.”
More recently, Donaldson was an additional editor for a key sequence in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis – a wedding reception set in Madison Square Garden. Donaldson was given carte blanche to “discover creative possibilities” from improvised and experimental footage. “Working with Francis brought so many things full circle,” says Donaldson. “He told me that he was still learning how to make movies, still discovering what cinema could be, and that an artist’s curiosity and sense of play was their greatest asset. Francis’ creative philosophy felt so similar to what Clarke taught at Queen’s so many years before: to be unrestrained in discovering our voice because what we don’t know can be our superpower.”
