About 2026

ABOUT JIM

DIRECTOR / WRITER

Award-winning filmmaker with a visual approach shaped by illustration, animation, storyboarding and production design.

Jim brings a cinematic eye to character-driven storytelling across feature films, television and genre work.

Jim Cliffe is an award-winning Canadian film and television director and screenwriter whose background in the visual arts continues to shape his approach behind the camera.

His path to directing began with drawing, illustration and animation. After studying art, film and animation, Jim worked professionally across illustration, design and visual storytelling — experience that later expanded into storyboarding, art direction and production design.

His first professional short film, Tomorrow’s Memoir, was written, directed and produced on a micro-budget after Jim storyboarded the film scene by scene. It went on to win Best Comics-Oriented Film at the San Diego Comic-Con International Film Festival.

Jim’s feature debut, Donovan’s Echo, starring Danny Glover and Bruce Greenwood, grew from his first feature screenplay, co-written with Melodie Krieger. The screenplay won the Bronze Prize for Drama in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards and reached the quarterfinals of the Academy Nicholl Fellowships.

He has since directed a growing slate of television movies including Food for the Heart, The Movie Star and the Cowboy, Been There All Along, It’s a Christmas Thing and the thriller My Kidnapped Son.

That visual foundation remains central to his directing today. Performance and character come first, supported by composition, atmosphere, colour and the details that help make a story feel cinematic.

MORE VISUAL WORK  →