John Paizs
John Paizs (born 1957 in Winnipeg) is a Canadian film director, writer and actor. He is best known for Crime Wave (1985), which he wrote, directed and starred in. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
A key figure in the Winnipeg Film Group, Paizs made several short films before Crime Wave, including The Obsession of Billy Botski. He also created the Three Worlds of Nick trilogy—Springtime in Greenland; Oak, Ivy, and Other Dead Elms; and The International Style—which he released as three shorts because of a tight budget. In these films he plays the “quiet man” who never speaks, a character that also appears in Billy Botski and Crime Wave under different names. Budget limits led him to act in his own films, and he didn’t feel he was a strong actor.
After Crime Wave, Paizs mainly directed television. He returned to feature films in 1999 with Top of the Food Chain, a playful spoof of sci-fi B-movies about a bungling scientist trying to stop an alien invasion. He later taught at the Canadian Film Centre. In 2024 he appeared in the anthology Castration Movie. Paizs influenced Guy Maddin, who says Billy Botski inspired his own debut short, The Dead Father (1985). In 2008 the Royal Cinema in Toronto showcased his work, and in 2017 Springtime in Greenland was included in Canada On Screen, TIFF’s retrospective of Canadian cinema.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 14:48 (CET).