Alison McAlpine

Biography

Alison McAlpine is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, and poet known for her immersive, sensory approach to non-fiction cinema. She garnered international acclaim with her 2017 feature documentary "Cielo", a cinematic reverie on the night sky filmed in the Atacama Desert, which was praised for blending science with spirituality and human storytelling. In 2026, McAlpine is a central figure in the awards season conversation. Her latest work, the documentary short "perfectly a strangeness" (2024/2025), has been shortlisted for the 2026 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film. The film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, returns McAlpine to Chile's Atacama Desert, this time focusing on a dialogue-free narrative involving three donkeys discovering an abandoned astronomical observatory. The film has dominated the 2025/2026 festival circuit, winning prizes at the Chicago International Film Festival and earning a nomination for the 2026 Cinema Eye Honors for Best Nonfiction Short. Critics have described her work as "film poetry," noted for its stunning cinematography and philosophical depth. McAlpine is also a Guggenheim Fellow (2021), currently developing a hybrid fiction-documentary project tentatively titled "Dr. Procter", which is inspired by the life of her grandfather and explores themes of addiction and medicine.

Known For

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