Nettie Wild

Nettie Wild (Nettie Barry Canada Wild) is a Canadian filmmaker with a focus on documentaries that highlight marginalized groups and discrimination that these groups face, including people in Canada and around the world. She has worked throughout her professional career as an actor, director, producer, and cameraperson.

Early life and education Wild, full name Nettie Barry Canada Wild, was born in New York City on May 18, 1952 to a British father and a Kitsilano mother. Their occupations were journalist and opera singer, respectively. Wild's mother felt that Nettie sticking to her Canadian roots was important, hence the name, and one month after Wild was born, the family moved to Vancouver where Wild would live the majority of her life. This issue was very close to Wild as she grew up in Vancouver. Despite this, the film was received poorly and did not gain the filmmaker critical acclaim. The events that are documented in this film take place after the signing of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and shows its immediate effects. This includes that it caused the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) to take over several towns and ranches in the area.

One of Wild's most successful films was Fix: The Story of an Addicted City (2002) which focused on the drug issue in Vancouver and the fight over whether safe injection sites should be constructed. Wild, working as the co-producer and director of the documentary, wanted to show the issues plaguing her home town. The film followed the two sides of the fight over safe injection sites and how to remedy the drug issue killing hundreds of residents every year. The film would go on to become one of Wild's most acclaimed films and lead to governmental involvement.

Awards Wild was awarded the audience award for best documentary film at the 1998 AFI Fest for A Place Called Chiapas. She was given Genie Awards for Best Feature Length Documentary for both A Place Called Chiapas and Fix, and won two awards at the Berlin International Film Festival for A Rustling of Leaves.

At the 2016 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (HotDocs), Wild won the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award for KONELĪNE: our land beautiful.

At the 2016 Vancouver International Film Festival, Wild's film KONELĪNE: our land beautiful won the Women in Film and Television Artistic Merit Award, presented to a Canadian feature film at VIFF written and/or directed solely by a woman.

Wild was awarded the 2023 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for Artistic Achievement.