Biografi
Donald Martin holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. He and his productions have earned numerous awards and honors, including a 2022 Humanitas Prize nomination for his screenplay "Queen Bees." In 2010, he received the Margaret Collier Lifetime Achievement Award at the Canadian Screen Awards for his extensive television work. His writing on CBC's acclaimed "Celine" (the life story of Celine Dion) earned him a Canadian Screen Award nomination in 2009. In 2002, he was awarded Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee Medal for his career achievements and philanthropy. The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television honored him with its first Humanitarian Award in 2001. In 1996, he received nominations for both the Writer's Guild of Canada Award and a Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Screenplay for the feature film "Never Too Late," starring Olympia Dukakis and Cloris Leachman.
In feature films, his Netflix movie "Brazen," starring Alyssa Milano, debuted in January 2022 and held the #1 spot on Netflix worldwide for several weeks. His comedy "Queen Bees," featuring Ellen Burstyn and James Caan, was released in theaters in June 2021 and ranked among Netflix’s Top Ten movies for weeks following its 2023 streaming premiere. His adaptation of Eckhart Tolle's "Milton’s Secret," starring Donald Sutherland and Michelle Rodriguez, premiered at the 2016 Vancouver International Film Festival. Donald has been commissioned to write feature scripts for Paramount, Universal, CBS Films, The Weinstein Company, Miramax, Showtime, Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla Entertainment, and Escape Artists (Sony).
In television, Donald has more than 50 produced movies and mini-series to his credit, earning global recognition, including Prince Albert’s Red Cross Award at the Monte Carlo Film & Television Festival for his first TV movie "No Blame," which was the first film to address women and AIDS and was screened at the Fifth International AIDS Conference.
His TV series work includes projects for Showtime, ABC, NBC, CBC, CTV, and syndicated programming.
Donald is a member of the Writers Guild of America West, Writers Guild of Canada, Television Academy, Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, and the British Academy of Film & Television Arts.
He has led workshops and delivered lectures at prestigious institutions such as The American Film Institute (Los Angeles), Pepperdine University, the University of Southern California, The Los Angeles Film School, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Asia (Singapore), The National Academy of Cinema (Bologna, Italy), The Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), and The National Screen Institute of Canada. He currently directs the Feature Film Writing Conservatory at UCLA Extension.
