Chelsea McMullan: the documentary maker who grew up in Langley

Langley nearly got a basketball player. POV Magazine’s 2016 profile says Chelsea McMullan grew up here, went to Brookswood Secondary on a basketball scholarship, and was being scouted by Canadian universities before walking away from the game to make films. Wikipedia, citing a 2022 Globe and Mail profile, adds that McMullan had been making short films since age seven.

It worked out. McMullan, who was based in Toronto by 2013, has become one of the country’s best-regarded documentary directors, with several films made through the National Film Board.

The films

• Derailments (2011): a short documentary, nominated for the Genie for best short documentary.
• My Prairie Home (2013): the first feature, an NFB documentary-musical about the singer-songwriter Rae Spoon. The Georgia Straight reported that the two met while McMullan was making an earlier NFB western set in BC’s Interior and McMullan asked Spoon to score it. The film was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for best feature documentary.
• World Famous Gopher Hole Museum (2015): another Canadian Screen Award nomination, for best short documentary.
• Michael Shannon Michael Shannon John (2015): premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival and played Hot Docs in 2016.
• Crystal Pite: Angels’ Atlas (2022): won a VIFF audience award.
• Swan Song (2023): won the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award for best Canadian documentary, worth $50,000.
• Healer (2025).

In December 2015 McMullan also received the DOC Vanguard award for emerging and mid-career documentary makers, POV reported.

Where to watch

The National Film Board keeps a page of the films McMullan has directed for it. For more Langley filmmakers, actors and artists, see actors, artists and writers from Langley.