Born in Canada in 1943, David Cronenberg graduated in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1967. While still a student, he began making experimental films, later moving into television before writing and directing his first feature, Shivers (1975). He went on to establish one of the most distinctive bodies of work in contemporary cinema, with films including Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), The Fly (1986), Naked Lunch (1991) and Crash (1996). Drawing on literary influences such as Vladimir Nabokov and William S. Burroughs, Cronenberg has forged a cinematic language in which the boundaries between body, mind and technology are constantly unsettled. A defining figure of body horror, he brings horror and science fiction into dialogue with questions of identity, desire and transformation. His films probe the instability of the human body and the limits of consciousness, giving visceral form to the anxieties of modern life through a cinema of philosophical inquiry and unsettling psychological intensity.
A regular guest at LEFFEST, Cronenberg was the subject of an extensive retrospective in 2009 and served on the Official Selection Jury in 2017. A Dangerous Method (2011) and Crimes of the Future (2022) were screened in the Official Selection Out of Competition, while The Shrouds (2024) competed in the Official Selection. In 2026, he returns to LEFFEST as President of the Official Selection Jury.
David Cronenberg
Chair of the Official Selection Jury, Director
