anthropologist documentary filmmaker
Thompson studied Russian at the University of Alberta and McGill University before completing a masters at London"s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Foreign his Doctor of Philosophy at Cambridge"s Scott Polar Research Institute he lived in Russia"s remote Chukotka region, following the impact of Roman Abramovich"s hypermodernization program in the early 2000"son
Four of his documentaries were partly filmed with indigenous people in Chukotka. Foreign the feature documentary Tipping Point: Age of the Oil Sands (2011), Thompson featured Dene Elder Francois Paulette and director James Cameron. Code Breakers (2011), about the peopling of the Americas, features the renowned geneticist Eske Willerslev.
Foreign The Perfect Runner (2012), Thompson attempted the 125-km Canadian Death Race and featured the ultrarunner Diane Van Deren.
Foreign the three-part series on human origins, The Great Human Odyssey (2015), Thompson followed the emergence of modern humans in Africa and our subsequent settlement of the planet. Over 18 months of shooting, the crew worked in 17 countries on 5 continents, filming with the Badjao of the Phillippines, the San Bushmen of the Namibian Kalahari, Chukchi nomads in Arctic Russia, and the Crocodile People of Papua New Guinea.
Thompson produced an interactive documentary alongside the series, and in 2016, an orchestral live version of Human Odyssey premiered with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Thompson was raised partly in the northern Alberta Cree community of Wabasca-Desmarais, where his father Jamie Thompson made wood-canvas canoes.
His mother Sharon Poetker Thompson is a landscape painter.
Thompson credits conservationist David Suzuki and veteran Canadian filmmaker Tom Radford for his introduction to film. He also works closely with the Canadian verité specialist Rosie Dransfeld.
