Andrew Nisker

Early life and career

Nisker and the Philosopher Kings members formed a band early on in their careers, before they became well-known. He graduated from film school at York University and then signed a first-look deal with Broadway Video. His screenplay Death, Family and Religion, a black comedy, was optioned by Broadway and entered development during the early 1990s, as Nisker began producing television pilots. He also wrote, directed, and produced several documentary shorts, including Canadian Feaver and Lost in New York.

After working in New York, Nisker returned to his native Canada, and became a director for lifestyle and documentary television for networks including CBC, CTV, Chum Television and Global. He also began producing and directing full-length documentary films of his own, many of which focus on environmental issues. Kim Hughes has written of Nisker that his "forceful yet highly amusing films ... both drive home the point that simple changes made in the household can vastly reduce everybody's environmental footprint". In addition to film, Nisker is an interactive entertainment producer, having worked in several interactive entertainment mediums, including interactive DVD board games through collaborations with clients like WWE, NASCAR, and The Apprentice.

Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home

Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home is a 2007 documentary film about the global garbage crisis, written, directed, and executive produced by Andrew Nisker. According to Nisker, "The garbage strike in Toronto in 2002 was the 'aha' moment for my film Garbage. Garbage was being piled in Trinity Bellwoods Park near my home and I'd walk by those piles every day on my way to work, which got me thinking about where all this stuff was coming from and where it's all going. That got me examining my own life and my garbage creation and I began to gauge my impact on the environment. I also realized making the film that there are many ways to change your lifestyle and live more sustainably. So it occurred to me that putting a family on a kind of self-imposed garbage strike would address those questions, but also have comedic elements." So Nisker filmed an "average family" named the McDonalds over the span of three months as they saved every scrap of garbage they created over those months in their garage.

Charlotte Jusinski of the Santa Fe Reporter described the film further, writing, "The movie starts out innocently enough, showing the husband and wife and their three young children as they pick out industrial garbage cans, test thick plastic bags and figure out how to get around health code violations. Director Andrew Nisker takes the viewer to landfills, recycling centers and to the heart of Toronto’s multi-million dollar “wet garbage” processing plant—a place where Canadians’ food scraps, paper towels and kitty litter are processed into composting material. We learn about phosphates in our laundry detergent, heavy metals in our bodies, and how communities in Michigan deal with being the dumpster to Canada’s trash. The narrative then takes us to West Virginia, where residents in coal mining towns have had their homes, schools and lungs destroyed by the coal plants that supply Toronto’s power."

The Toronto Star further writes that, "In his film, Nisker also looks at the less tangible garbage we create daily. He shows viewers the sludge at the bottom of the sewage treatment plant that is regularly trucked to a Michigan dump, the oily "road runoff" from our cars' dripping exhaust pipes that snakes into our rivers and streams, and the chemicals we dump into our dishwashers and washing machines that feminize male fish and make the air inside our homes more toxic than outside."

The film was broadcast on the Sundance Channel and received screenings in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Nisker was interviewed by several television networks about the impact of garbage on the world, and how consumers can make change by choosing not to purchase items that create excess trash. He stated to Fox News Channel that the goal of the film is not to necessarily cause a radical shift in the lifestyle of modern individuals, but to incite people to think about a part of their lives that may be hidden by the efficiency of city waste removal or other modern conveniences.

Chemerical: Redefining Clean for a New Generation

Chemerical: Redefining Clean for a New Generation is a 2009 documentary directed and executive produced by Nisker that he says grew out of Garbage. He has stated that, "I wanted to look at all the different ways people pollute. I learned that indoor air quality is 10-to-50 times worse than outdoor air quality and it's because of the cleaning products we use and what's in those cleaning products. So I started researching and discovered that by using these products, we are not only compromising our homes and ourselves, but also compromising the water that goes down our drains. These products are unnecessary and expensive and damaging, and I wanted to answer the question, 'Is there a way to live at the same standard but have less of an environmental impact?' And the idea of putting a family to the challenge worked so well with Garbage that I decided to do it again with Chemerical."

Nisker has stated that part of his inspiration for the film was his personal history with asthma, which he had struggled with since the age of seven. Cheryl Rossi of the Vancouver Courier described the film as following "the members of the Goode family as they strive to create a toxic-free home. They learn about lead in some red lipsticks and mix awful-tasting toothpaste while their teenaged son wonders if going toxic-free means sporting flat, gel-free hair. The documentary also highlights a woman who is one of more than two million people in the U.S. who suffer from multiple chemical sensitivity. Her condition had reached the point where she had a hard time breathing in her own home and walking by exhaust vents from clothes dryers without feeling ill." It also covers the health crisis of a native reserve located by a nearby chemical plant, as well as residential neighborhoods located near toxic waste dumps.

Orange Witness

Orange Witness debuted in late 2012. The film, executive produced and directed by Nisker, features interviews from victims of Agent Orange, a defoliant used by the British during the Malayan Emergency and the US during the Vietnam War that had a serious impact on the health of those that came into contact with it.

Chasing Fortune

Chasing Fortune is "a documentary about J.D. Fortune, the former INXS lead singer attempting to restart his rock career", according to Playback Magazine. Nisker stated of the film that it "isn’t about why he blew his opportunity. It’s about how he could come back". The film debuted in September 2013 on Super Channel, as a part of the network's original content development strategy. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star wrote, "Is it worse to never have fame, or to have it and then lose it? The answer to that question, this doc suggests, is the real devil inside."

The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Nisker's riches-to-rags film finds the former rock star hitting rock bottom after a headlong plunge into bankruptcy and homelessness. Fortune left INXS twice before his turbulent global touring with the legendary Aussie rock band ended in 2011 ... That return from unfathomable ruin starts with Fortune joining members of the Canadian indie band Crush Luther to front his own band, Fortune ... Fortune breathed privileged air when he boarded INXS. But that band was a 30-year business built around a family act, the Farriss Brothers, who had their own way to operate. And Fortune bristled at just being the hair and teeth, the lead singer frozen out creatively. Chasing Fortune reveals the Canadian musician enduring the same fate with his comeback band. The former Crush Luther members -- Luther Mallory, PJ Herrick and Matt Leitch -- are revealed as highly skilled unit in which Fortune never fit in, creatively or personality-wise. "It came down to the same dynamic: He (Fortune) chose to front a band that was tight. So history repeats itself, on a smaller scale," Nisker observed."

Dark Side of the Chew

In 2014 Nisker released his documentary Dark Side of the Chew, in which he covered the history of chewing gum and some of its negative impacts on society—such as increased litter, the cost of cleaning up gum from public surfaces, and others. The documentary moves from the origin of chewing gum 9000 years ago in Finland, to the advent of mass marketed chewing gum, to the advent of medicinal gums (such as nicotine gum). One of the major focuses is on how cities around the world deal with the problem of discarded gum, with up to 700 million pieces stuck to the streets of some larger cities and cities like London spending more than $1 million a year removing it from their public spaces. The film premiered on November 9, 2014 at the Planet in Focus film festival. Afterwards the film was shown on the TVO television station in 2015. In addition to the film, Nisker has partnered with Esri Canada to work on raising awareness about global gum pollution. Nisker also developed a smart phone app called the Gum Shoe App to track urban areas that have the largest problem.

Other work

In addition to his work as a director, Nisker has been a class instructor at OCAD University in Toronto. He is also the founder of the film distributor Take Action Films and a board member for Planet In Focus and Film Festival.