Border City Pictures was established in 2004 by award-winning director/shooter Matt Gallagher and Emmy©-nominated producer Cornelia Principe. With the release of Dispatches From A Field Hospital, together, they have produced seven documentaries. Their last feature documentary was the award-winning PREY which premiered at Hot Docs 2019 to both critical and audience praise. The Rise and Fall of the Grumpy Burger premiered at Hot Docs 2008, had a limited theatrical run at Cinematheque Ontario and Winnipeg and was broadcast on TVO and Knowledge Network. The feature documentary, Grinders, for which Matt was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction, premiered at Hot Docs in 2011 and aired on TVOntario, SCN, Access, Knowledge Network and Canal D in Quebec. The Motherload premiered on CBC’s Doc Zone and has been awarded prizes at the Chicago International Film/TV Festival and at the Worldfest Houston Festival. The feature, How to Prepare For Prison, was commissioned by TVO and premiered at Hot Docs 2016.
MATT GALLAGHER - Director/Shooter
Matt Gallagher has been directing and shooting feature documentaries and series for over 20 years. His stories have brought him far and wide -- embedding him in the diverse worlds of priests, prisons, and poker players, to name a few. Matt’s documentaries are character-driven narratives that explore both the struggles and the triumphs of the human condition.
Matt’s most recent feature release, PREY, won the Roger’s Audience Award and DGC Jury Prize at Hot Docs 2019. PREY continued to screen and collect awards at festivals around the world and was nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards and the DGC’s Allan King Award.
Matt has made films for Arte/ZDF, BBC, CBC, VICE, TVO, Documentary Channel, Bravo, History Channel, Discovery, and the National Film Board of Canada.
CORNELIA PRINCIPE – Producer/ Director/ Writer
Cornelia is an Oscar®, Emmy and Peabody nominated producer. Her documentary films have collectively screened at well over 100 national and international film festivals, been broadcast all over the world, and have garnered numerous awards and distinctions including: an Academy Award® Nomination for Best Feature Documentary; Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Coverage of a Current News Story; Peabody nomination for Documentary; Best Documentary Feature, Jury Award Winner, Tribeca Film Festival; Best Canadian Documentary, Hot Docs; Audience Choice Award, Hot Docs; TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten; Ted Rogers Best Feature Documentary, Canadian Screen Awards; Sundance Film Forward Program.
Cornelia is currently in production on the feature documentary A Vigilante’s Justice and in post-production on the feature documentary Russians at War in co-production with CAPA Films in France for TVO and ARTE-France. Other credit hi-lights include To Kill a Tiger (2022), which premiered at TIFF 2022 where it won the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film, and more recently a 96th Academy Award® nomination, Peabody nomination and the CSA Ted Rogers Best Feature Documentary; the award-winning feature PREY (2019); award-winning documentary The World Before Her (2012); and the award-winning documentary series Diamond Road (2008).